MOV  29  1920 


.^A 


BL  53  .S94  1920 

>. 

Swisher, 

Walter 

Samuel 

Religion 

and  the 

new 

psychol< 

Dgy 

I^ligion  and  the 

JA(j*)p  T^sychology 


For  the  Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things. 

—  I  Cor.  2:10 


^B^ligion    and    the 
V^^yp  T* sy chology 

<iA  T^sycho-atia lytic  Study  of  "B^ligion 


BY 


/ 


WALTER  SAMUEL  SWISHER,  B.D. 


MOV  29  1921 


'v^'t'''^ ■'':,''  «*r"* 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXX 


COPYRIGHT-  I  920- BY 
MARSHALL     JONES     COMPANY 


THE    PLIMPTON    PRESS  •  NORWOOD  •  MASS  •  C  •  S  •  A 


MARION  NEWELL  SWISHER 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Foreword ix 

I.  The  Nature  of  the  Religious  Problem  .  i 
II.   The   Nature  of  the   Unconscious   and 

ITS  Influence  on  the  Religious  Life  .  2 1 

III.  The  Motivation  of  Human  Life  ...  41 

IV.  Determinism  and  Free-will      ....  74 

V.  Mysticism  and  Neurotic  States     .     .     .87 

VI.  The  Problem  of  Evil 100 

VII.   Pathological  Religious  Types       .     .     .115 
VIII.  The   Occult    in    Modern     Religious 

Systems 128 

'DC.   Conversion    and    Attendant  Phenomena  145 
X.  The  Changing  Basis  and  Objective  of 

Religion 158 

XI.   Methods  of    Mental  and    Religious 

Healing 168 

XII.   The  Religious  Problem  in  Education     .   191 

APPENDICES 
I.  Dreams  and  Dream  Mechanisms    .     .     .233 

II.   Birth  Dreams 247 

Bibliography 257 

Index 259 

vii 


FOREWORD 

THERE  is  an  increasing  body  of  literature 
which  deals  with  the  new  psychology  and 
the  psycho-analytic  principle.  In  the  brief 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  Freud  made  his 
discovery  of  the  Unconscious  as  a  determinant  of 
individual  psychic  life  and  published  his 
Tratimdeutung  {Interpretation  of  Dreams), 
this  work  has  become  a  classic  and  has  run 
through  several  editions,  both  in  German  and 
English.  The  reach  of  its  final  chapters  is  be- 
yond the  realm  of  applied  psychology  into  that 
of  philosophy.  Dr.  Oskar  Pfister  of  Zurich  has 
wTitten  a  book,  The  Psycho-analytic  Method, 
which  details  the  psycho-analytic  method  of 
treatment  for  nervous  ills  especially  as  an  edu- 
cational measure,  and  reveals  broad  scholarship 
and  much  painstaking  research.  Dr.  I.  H.  Cor- 
iat,  who  collaborated  with  Worcester  and  Mc- 
Comb  in  the  book.  Religion  and  Medicine, 
has  brought  out  two  small  books,  What  is 
Psycho-analysis?  and  The  Meaning  of  Dreams, 
brief  but  extremely  lucid  and  readable  accounts 
of  psycho-analysis,  its  basic  principles  and  its 
method,  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  practicing 
neurologist. 

ix 


X  FOREWORD 

None  of  the  works  on  this  subject,  with  the 
exception  of  Pfister's,  and  that  but  fugitively 
and  briefly,  deals  with  reUgious  problems.  This 
book  aims  to  be  a  comprehensive  treatment  of 
the  religious  problem  in  its  various  phases,  the 
varied  phenomena  of  religion,  and  various  nor- 
m_al  and  abnormal  religious  types,  together  with 
certain  suggestions  for  a  new  and  different  kind 
of  education,  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  new 
psychology.  Readers  of  William  James'  "Va- 
rieties of  Religious  Experience"  will  already  be 
familiar  with  mysticism,  the  phenomena  of  re- 
ligious conversion,  and  kindred  movements  and 
phenomena  of  the  religious  life.  These  things 
are  not  new,  but  recent  exploration  of  the  Un- 
conscious as  a  determinant  of  behavior  and  a 
potent  factor  in  every  thought  and  act  of  daily 
life,  has  added  considerably  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  buried  self,  and  thrown  much  new  light 
upon  the  problem  of  the  motivation  of  human 
life,  even  as  the  hand  of  the  archeologist  reveals 
the  structures  of  a  city  long-buried  beneath  vol- 
canic ashes  and  lava. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  is  still  much 
prejudice  to  be  overcome  against  the  Freudian 
psychology.  At  first  glance,  its  whole  structure 
seems  fantastic,  far-fetched,  and  scientifically 
unsound.  Any  system  of  thought  which  has  to 
do  with  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  seems  to 
smack  of  quackery,  charlatanry,  and  the  pseudo- 
sciences  of  the  Middle  Ages,  e.  g.,  astrology  and 


FOREWORD  XI 

alchemy.  It  can  only  be  pointed  out  that  the 
pragmatic  test  proves  the  Freudian  psychology 
sound;  psycho-analysis  operates  successfully  in 
human  life,  and  to  its  beneficent  ministrations 
is  due  the  mental  health  of  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  persons  who  all  their  lives  long  have 
sought  to  be  free  of  nervous  troubles  and,  find- 
ing no  relief  elsewhere,  have  found  healing  in 
the  psycho-analytic  method  of  treatment.  Prej- 
udice against  the  Freudian  psychology  is  natu- 
ral, for  civilized  man  is  averse  to  having  the  bio- 
logical origin  of  his  emotions  revealed  in  the  harsh 
white  light  of  modern  rational  thought.  The 
very  repressions  due  to  the  conflict  of  the  primi- 
tive Unconscious  with  the  demands  of  the  moral 
code  of  to-day  lead  the  individual  to  condemn 
the  new  psychology.  The  more  intellectualized 
man  is,  the  more  likely  he  is  to  condemn. 

That  religion  had  a  phallic  origin  and  that  our 
emotional  life  has  a  sex  basis,  are  concepts 
highly  offensive  and  even  shocking  to  sensitive 
souls.  To  these  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  the 
primitive  in  its  very  nature  is  animal  and  savage, 
that  we  are  in  nowise  to  blame  for  carrying 
along  with  us  impedimenta  that  belong  essen- 
tially to  a  savage  state  of  existence,  since  these 
things  inhere  in  the  Unconscious  and  are  not  ac- 
cessible to  waking  consciousness  through  con- 
scious mental  effort;  that  is,  we  are  not  aware  of 
their  existence  any  more  than  a  man  is  aware 
that  he  has  a  vermiform  appendix  until,  like  an 


Xll  FOREWORD 

inflamed  appendix,  they  create  some  disturbance 
and  throw  us  off  our  mental  balance.  Again,  the 
fact  that  religion  has  a  phallic  origin  need  not 
confound  us ;  man  himself,  if  we  accept  the  theo- 
ries of  Darwin  or  Lamarck,  had  a  Simian  origin. 
This  does  not  mean  that  he  has  brought  with 
him  into  civilized  life  all  the  traits  of  the  anthro- 
poid ape.  He  may  bear  on  his  person  relics  of 
his  remote  past:  a  rudimentary  tail,  or  a  Darwin 
ear;  the  new-born  child  will  cling  with  prehen- 
sile grasp  to  the  outstretched  broom-stick. 
But  these  things  are  merely  of  historical  interest. 
So  with  the  phallic  origin  of  religion;  the  fact 
that  religion  had  such  an  origin  or  that  it  re- 
tains a  certain  amount  of  phallic  imagery 
in  refined,  sublimated,  and  symbolized  form 
constitutes  no  impugnment  of  religion.  If  re- 
ligion had  such  an  origin,  so  had  art.  Primi- 
tive life  in  all  its  phases  reveals  a  phallic  origin. 
But  what  of  that?  We  need  not  blush  to  own 
it.  It  is  a  historical  fact,  no  more,  no  less.  The 
world  progresses  through  an  open-minded  ac- 
ceptance of  new  theories  once  they  are  tried  and 
proved.  It  may  burn  a  Giordano  Bruno,  force 
a  Galileo  to  recant,  cast  a  Columbus  into  prison, 
exile  a  Copernicus  in  a  provincial  town,  but 
truth  cannot  be  killed  nor  even  long  remain 
hid.  If  a  man  but  speak  truth,  the  world  will 
in  time  come  to  his  way  of  thinking. 

Let  the  Freudian  psychology  stand  or  fall  on 
its  own  merits.     It  has  naught  to  fear. 


FOREWORD  XUl 

The  temptation  is  strong,  it  is  well-nigh  ir- 
resistible, for  one  whose  metier  is  dealing  with 
religious  problems  and  who  has  the  homiletic 
habit  somewhat  firmly  fixed,  to  enter  into  dis- 
cussion of  the  genuine  content,  divine  and  abso- 
lutely real,  of  the  mystic  experience;  to  state 
ex  cathedra  the  validity  of  evidence  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  life  after  physical  dissolution;  to 
give  moral  counsel  and  exhort  the  reader  to  live 
life  on  a  high  ethical  plane;  in  a  word,  to  use 
all  the  well-known  methods  of  the  pulpit,  which 
are  hortatory  rather  than  scientific.  I  believe 
that  in  the  following  pages  I  have  successfully 
avoided  these  pitfalls.  This  book  is  not  a  collec- 
tion of  sermons,  it  aims  at  being  a  strictly  scien- 
tific examination  of  human  motives  and  a  pres- 
entation of  the  new  psychology  as  it  applies  to 
the  religious  problem.  There  is  a  vast  literature 
which  deals  with  the  divine  content  of  mysticism, 
the  relationship  of  the  soul  and  its  God  in  the 
conversion  experience,  the  proof  of  continuance 
of  life  after  death.  There  seems  no  need  to  add 
one  volume  more. 

And,  after  all,  though  the  devout  soul  may 
shrink  at  the  harsh  frankness  of  certain  chap- 
ters of  the  book,  may  question  or  condemn  its 
conclusions,  and  consider  that  the  fine  bloom  is 
rubbed  from  religious  experience  by  a  merciless 
analysis  of  its  phenomena,  —  after  all,  must 
there  not  be  some  mechanism,  some  method  of 
functioning,  by  which  the  soul  apprehends  the 


XIV  FOREWORD 


existence  of  God  and  feels  His  Presence?  Sup- 
pose we  do  dub  this  mechanism  neurosis  or  hys- 
teria or  even  psychosis?  The  devout  soul  will 
be  ready  with  an  answer  to  all  of  this  apparently 
merciless  dissection  of  religious  experience  and 
the  (apparent)  materialism  of  the  new  psychol- 
ogy. This  ready  answer  will  be:  Freudian  psy- 
chology may  explain  the  mechanism,  it  cannot 
explain  the  matter,  the  divine  content  of  the  re- 
ligious experience. 

The  question,  then,  of  the  validity  of  the  re- 
ligious experience  as  evidence  of  the  immanence 
of  the  Divine  and  its  operations  in  human  life, 
must  be  left  for  each  individual  soul  to  answer 
for  himself;  in  this  work,  we  must  put  it  aside, 
not  as  being  unworthy  of  serious  consideration, 
but  as  lying  within  another  field  of  inquiry. 

No  man  ever  writes  the  book  he  intends  to 
write.  He  plans  and  designs.  He  builds  a  frame- 
work. He  will  speak  thus  and  so,  fitting  all  his 
utterances  into  the  frame-work  he  has  erected. 
But  it  does  not  work  out  as  he  intended.  He 
intends  one  thing  and  writes  another.  Probably, 
in  mid-career,  the  whole  plan  and  structure  of 
his  book  change.  This  eccentricity  of  the  human 
intellect  may  puzzle  some,  but  not  the  Freudian. 
He  knows  his  complexes  and  his  resistances.  He 
knows  why,  when  he  arrives  at  a  point  in  his 
writing  at  which  he  had  intended  to  say  a  certain 
thing,  he  forgets  it  and  goes  on  to  say  something 
other  than  what  was  in  his  mind.   He  knows  that 


FOREWORD  XV 

there  is  a  motive  in  his  forgetting  and  that  the 
substance  of  what  he  does  say  is  not  determined 
by  caprice,  but  by  an  inexorable  law  which  de- 
crees that  certain  thoughts  shall  rise  into  con- 
sciousness; that  certain  others  shall  be  repressed 
into  the  Unconscious.  He  knows  likewise  that 
every  book  is  autobiographical  and  that  the 
trained  observer  can  read  between  the  lines  and 
search  out  the  innermost  recesses  of  the  author's 
personality.  But  this  does  not  give  him  pause. 
He  goes  calmly  to  his  self-appointed  task  and  is 
not  unduly  depressed  by  anxiety  for  the  gracious 
reception  of  his  book  nor  concern  for  not  having 
said  the  things  he  fully  intended  to  say.  They 
are  perhaps  better  left  unsaid.  In  due  time, 
when  the  resistances  are  broken  down  which  sup- 
pressed the  forgotten  material,  it  will  emerge, 
and  then  the  author  will  be  inspired  to  write 
again.  Meanwhile,  the  world  will  at  least  have 
been  spared  another  book  and  when  the  author's 
forgotten  thoughts  do  appear  in  print,  they  will 
have  been  well  incubated. 

I  am  deeply  grateful  to  Dr.  I.  H.  Coriat,  who 
has  kindly  reviewed  the  manuscript  of  this  book 
and  corrected  the  psycho-analytic  portions.  He 
has  likewise  given  many  helpful  suggestions  of 
which  I  have  been  glad  to  take  advantage. 
Thanks  are  due  to  my  wife,  who  has  given  many 
helpful  suggestions  as  to  the  book's  style. 


RELIGION   AND   THE 
NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

I.     THE  NATURE   OF    THE  RELIGIOUS 

PROBLEM 

RELIGIOUS  problems  are  manifold.  Every 
religious  system,  every  individual  life, 
every  age,  and  every  people,  has  had  its  own 
particular  religious  problems.  Certain  of  these 
are  cosmic  in  character,  certain  are  personal  and 
individual.  What  or  who  created  the  universe? 
What  was  the  process?  What  orders  the  uni- 
verse, sustains  it  and  preserves  it  in  its  multi- 
farious activities?  Does  a  God  exist?  If  so, 
what  is  His  nature?  Here  are  cosmic  problems 
for  religion  to  solve.  If  a  God  exists,  what  is 
the  relationship  of  His  life  to  mine?  How  do 
His  existence  and  His  nature  affect  my  life,  de- 
termine my  conduct?  What  is  the  interaction 
of  Divine  and  human?  Is  the  soul  a  direct 
emanation  from  Him?  Is  there  soul  substance, 
or  is  the  personality  but  tabula  rasa,  a  blank 
page,  when  the  individual  enters  upon  this 
earthly  life?  Why,  in  a  divinely  ordered  uni- 
verse, does  evil  exist?  These  are  personal,  in- 
dividual problems. 


2         RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

In  spite  of  the  apparent  heterogeneity  of  re- 
ligious problems,  they  may,  in  the  last  analysis, 
all  be  resolved  into  one.  Running  between  all 
these  apparently  diversified  inquiries  of  the  hu- 
man mind  there  is  one  causal  thread.  Whether 
the  speculative  mind  is  searching  the  farthest 
stars  in  order  to  come  upon  some  satisfying 
theory  of  cosmic  order,  or  casting  inquiring  eyes 
upon  the  diverse  and  apparently  petty  activities 
of  human  life,  individual  and  collective,  the  prob- 
lem is  in  the  main  the  same.  It  is  the  problem  of 
philosophy  and  psychology  as  well  as  of  religion: 
the  problem  of  the  adjustment  of  the  ego  to  its 
environment.  The  religious  problem  is  specifi- 
cally a  problem  of  relationship.  The  individual, 
thrown  willy-nilly  into  a  given  environment,  is 
unhappy  until  he  ascertains  his  own  relations  to 
that  environment;  if  there  is  maladjustment,  he 
would  establish  definite,  effective  relations  with 
his  environment.  The  solution  of  the  religious 
problem  is  the  perfect  adjustment  of  the  ego  to 
its  environment,  the  immediate  environment  and 
the  cosmos. 

Does  a  man  seek  to  scale  the  highest  heavens? 
The  object  of  his  ambition  is  some  satisfaction 
for  his  personal  life.  Does  he  sound  the  depths 
of  the  sea?  Again,  it  is  some  personal  satisfac- 
tion that  he  seeks.  Would  he  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God?  It  is  for  the  sake  of  his  own 
life.  If  he  seek  the  cause  of  evil,  cosmic  or  hu- 
man, it  is  because  evil  has  impinged  upon  his 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   3 

own  consciousness,  it  has  fastened  its  fangs 
upon  him,  and  looking  to  "whatever  gods  there 
be,"  he  raises  anguished  eyes  and  mutely  ques- 
tions. Why? 

Man  would  know  the  relationship  between 
his  own  and  the  cosmic  hfe.  If  he  fail  to 
find  that  such  relationship  exists,  he  feels  that 
somehow  he  is  out  of  tune,  he  will  in  every  case 
endeavor  to  establish  such  relationship,  strive 
to  resolve  discord  in  harmony.  This  is  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  all  religion. 

I.  The  Problem  in  Primitive  Religion 

The  man  of  advanced  culture  can  scarcely 
conceive  of  religion  divorced  from  ethics;  never- 
theless it  is  a  fact  that  the  most  primitive  of  re- 
ligions are  void  of  ethical  content.  The  prim- 
ordial is  synonymous  with  the  emotional;  thus 
the  religion  of  the  primitive  is  primarily  emo- 
tional, the  volitional  and  the  intellectual  ele- 
ments —  upon  which  the  ethical  so  largely  de- 
pends—  seem  to  be  entirely  wanting.  While 
it  is  highly  emotional,  colored  deeply  with  the 
uncontrolled  passions  of  the  savage,  primitive 
religion  has  no  ethical  content  because  it  man- 
ifests no  sense  of  internal,  moral  conflict.  Be- 
fore there  can  be  a  sense  of  sin,  other  and  higher 
forces  must  enter  into  human  life  than  those  of 
which  the  primitive  mind  is  aware. 

From  observation  of  the  modern  savage  and 


4        RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

exploration  into  the  Unconscious,  we  reach  the 
conclusion  that  the  primitive  life  is  never  the 
rationalized  life.  The  primitive  is  conscious 
only  of  blind  desire:  sex-desire,  desire  to  kill 
and  eat,  desire  to  fight  and  murder,  to  protect 
personal  property  including  wife  and  child.  All 
of  these  are  but  some  form  of  sex-desire. 

But  primordial  man  likewise  suffers  fear.  He 
sees  his  fellow  go  down  in  battle,  with  the  red 
blood  streaming  from  his  wounds.  He  sees  him 
lying  cold  and  stark  who  erst  was  pulsing  with 
life  and  energy.  He  views  the  thundering  cata- 
ract, the  sharp  lightning-stroke,  the  overwhelm- 
ing waves  of  the  sea  that  may  swallow  his  frail 
boat  in  an  instant  of  time.  He  recognizes  that 
there  are  forces  in  nature  stronger  than  his  own 
puny  arm,  mysterious  forces  that  may  deal  out 
death  and  destruction.  And  he  fears.  He  spec- 
ulates as  to  the  nature  of  these  mysterious  de- 
structive forces  and  creates  a  cosmology  animis- 
tic and  anthropomorphic.  He  peoples  woods 
and  hills,  mountains  and  valleys,  sea,  and  land, 
and  sky,  with  spirits,  demons  who  wear  human 
form.  These  may  be  malignant  or  beneficent 
as  the  whim  seizes  them.  Man  feels  impelled  to 
propitiate  these  ruthless  intelligences  of  which 
his  world  is  full.  Hence  arise  the  elaborate 
systems  of  primitive  religion  with  their  fetish- 
ism, taboo,  propitiatory  sacrifices,  ceremonials, 
f eastings  and  ablutions.  There  is  little  or  no 
evidence  in  all  this  of  a  sense  of  sin,  an  inward 


NATURE     OF     THE     RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM       5 

conflict.  No  altruistic  note  is  sounded ;  there  is 
no  sense  of  obligation  to  a  fellow  man.  In  these 
primitive  systems  there  is  revealed  the  con- 
sciousness of  but  one  desire:  the  desire  of  man 
so  to  adjust  himself  to  his  environment  as  to  live 
in  safety  and  security  from  the  supernatural  foes 
that  surround  him.  His  religion  is  therefore 
highly  unethical. 

He  has  indeed  a  sad  time  in  this  attempt  at 
adjustment.  His  gods  are  arbitrary  to  the  last 
degree.  They  may  preserve  or  slay  as  they  see 
fit.  They  may  accept  or  reject  his  offering  ac- 
cording to  their  mood.  Jahveh  accepts  the  sac- 
rifice of  Abel  but  rejects  that  of  Cain  for  no  os- 
tensible reason  save  that  he  is  an  arbitrary  and 
jealous  god.  If  the  god  is  propitiated  and  is  in 
a  kindly  mood,  he  will  assist  his  worshipper  in 
all  his  enterprises.  He  will  enable  him  to  slay 
his  enemy  at  a  distance  by  bringing  a  pestilence 
upon  him.  He  will  strike  fear  into  the  heart  of 
the  enemy,  so  that  he  will  run  when  no  man 
pursues.  This  god  will  protect  and  cherish  his 
own,  but  to  the  enemy  he  is  an  avenging  fire. 
But  woe  to  the  man  or  group  that  offends  this 
god.  It  were  better  for  such  a  man  that  he  had 
never  been  born.  The  Children  of  Israel,  a 
complaining  and  petulant  people  from  all  ac- 
counts, tire  of  their  monotonous  diet  of  manna. 
They  ask  for  quail;  their  desire  is  gratified,  but 
they  have  outraged  an  arbitrary  and  jealous  god, 
and  they  eat  but  to  die.   And  so  it  happens,  that 


6        SELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

a  people  will  endeavor  to  escape  the  penalty  of 
their  voluntary  or  inadvertent  violation  of  the 
canons  of  such  a  god.  They  will  therefore  de- 
vise some  means  of  turning  his  wrath  away  from 
themselves  to  another  creature.  Hence  the  insti- 
tution of  human  sacrifice  in  primitive  religion. 
They  will  give  the  god  their  most  precious  pos- 
session: the  first-born  son,  or  a  beautiful  daugh- 
ter, and  his  wrath  will  be  appeased.  As  time 
goes  on,  and  they  reach  a  higher  state  of  culture, 
this  sacrifice  will  no  longer  be  tolerable,  and  an 
animal  will  be  substituted.  Thus  the  Jewish 
priest  lays  the  sins  of  the  people  upon  the  scape- 
goat and  the  animal  is  thrust  out  into  the 
wilderness,  bearing,  with  equanimity  we  trust, 
the  people's  load  of  sin.  I  said,  "sin,"  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  in  none  of  these  cases  is  the  sin 
of  an  ethical  nature.  The  people  have  inadvert- 
ently and  fortuitously  outraged  a  jealous  god. 
They  were  conscious  of  no  intentional  wrong; 
they  were  even  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  their 
offence ;  nevertheless  they  suffer  as  grievously  as 
though  they  had  wantonly  disobeyed  the  divine 
law.  Even  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  man  com- 
mitted no  ethical  wrong.  He  ate  of  the  tree  and 
was  punished,  not  because  he  had  disobeyed,  but 
because  Jahveh  was  jealous  of  his  own  powers 
and  as  he  declared  to  his  peers,  "Behold,  the 
man  is  become  as  one  of  us,  to  know  good  and 
evil;  and  now,  lest  he  put  forth  his  hand,  and 
take  also  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  eat  and  live 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   7 

forever,  therefore  Jahveh  God  sent  him  forth 
from  the  Garden  of  Eden,  to  till  the  ground 
from  whence  he  was  taken."  That  is,  Jahveh, 
jealous  of  his  own  prerogatives,  which  man  would 
share,  removes  man  from  harm's  way  by  driv- 
ing him  from  the  garden  and  giving  him  useful 
employment.  It  is  likewise  noteworthy  that  the 
serpent  is  the  only  one  of  the  supernatural 
drajnatis  personae  who  speaks  the  truth.  His 
prediction  is  verified:  the  man  and  woman  have 
eaten  of  the  tree,  they  do  not  die  as  Jahveh  has 
threatened,  but  they  do  gain  a  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  and  bid  fair,  unless  thwarted,  to 
become  even  as  Jahveh.  There  is  not,  then,  in 
this  entire  myth  an  ethical  note  from  beginning 
to  end. 

The  myth  is  a  primitive  sex-myth.  The 
apple  given  by  Eve  to  Adam  (in  some  primitive 
cosmologies  this  takes  the  form  of  a  flower)  is 
the  symbol  of  her  virginity.  The  mutual  eating 
symbolizes  the  conjugal  relation.^  In  the  Aztec 
form  of  this  myth,  she  presents  him  a  rose,  that 
is,  the  flower  of  her  virginity,  which  they  smell 
together.  In  dreams  and  myths,  eating  or  smell- 
ing can,  by  displacement,  refer  to  the  sexual  act. 
The  gross  literalness  is  thus  idealized  and  ren- 
dered less  offensive. 

^  Freud  (Interpretation  of  Dreams,  page  247) :  "Since  bed  and 
board  constitute  marriage,  the  former  are  often  put  for  the  lat- 
ter in  the  dream,  and  as  far  as  practicable  the  sexual  presenta- 
tion complex  is  transposed  to  the  eating  complex." 


8        RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Of  especial  significance  is  the  serpent  in  this 
myth.  It  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  phal- 
lus. Pfister  says:  "The  phallic  significance  of 
the  serpent  runs  through  wide  stretches  of  re- 
ligious history.  Dieterich  relates  that  in  Greece 
on  certain  feasts,  a  phallus  or  a  serpent  was 
placed  in  a  chest.  The  serpent  cult  of  the  ne- 
groes of  Haiti  and  Louisiana  bears  a  phallic 
character.  .  .  .  The  mother  of  Augustus 
dreamed  that  she  was  impregnated  by  Apollo 
changed  into  the  form  of  a  serpent  and  has 
borne  since  the  figure  of  a  serpent  on  her  thigh." 
{Psycho-analytic  Method,  pp.  286-287.) 

Desire,  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  or  phallus, 
disturbs  the  paradisiacal  serenity  of  the  Garden 
of  Eden.^  The  conjugal  act  reveals  to  the  primal 
pair  knowledge  of  "good  and  evil,"  that  is  to 
say,  it  awakens  sex-consciousness.  Eve  is  de- 
flowered (note  the  obvious  symbolism  of  the 
Aztec  form  of  the  myth)  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  the  phallus.  Dreams  of  nervous  pa- 
tients are  likely  to  be  full  of  various  sorts  of 

1  Freud  {loc.  cit.,  p.  200  f.)  points  out  the  common  occur- 
rence of  non-embarrassment  dreams  of  nakedness.  These  he 
interprets  as  the  fulfilment  of  a  wish  to  return  to  a  childhood 
state,  they  represent  a  regression.  He  remarks  that  children  often 
show  exhibitional  cravings,  that  they  are  elated  at  run- 
ning about  naked,  rather  than  ashamed.  He  says:  "This  age 
of  childhood  in  which  the  sense  of  shame  is  lacking  seems  to  our 
later  recollections  a  Paradise,  and  Paradise  itself  is  nothing  but 
a  composite  phantasy  from  the  childhood  of  the  individual.  It 
is  for  this  reason,  too,  that  in  Paradise  human  beings  are  naked 
and  are  not  ashamed  until  the  moment  arrives  when  the  sense 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   9 

snakes,  which  are  symbols  of  the  thwarted  love- 
Hfe  of  the  patient.  The  repressed  sex-instinct 
of  the  individual  comes  to  expression  in  this 
symbolized  form.  Of  this  I  shall  speak  further 
in  a  later  section  of  this  book. 

The  common  sex-origin  of  these  primitive 
myths  explains  their  great  similarity  among 
widely  scattered  peoples.  Researchers  vex  them- 
selves in  vain  when  they  strive  to  trace  the  trans- 
mission of  such  myths  from  one  nation  to 
another  by  some  historical  process:  migration 
of  nomadic  peoples,  the  wanderings  of  the  chron- 
icler from  one  nation  to  another,  commercial 
transactions  between  widely  disseminated  peo- 
ples, and  the  like.  The  religion  of  Judaism 
shows  traces  of  Assyrian,  Babylonian,  and  Egyp- 
tian influences  to  be  sure,  but  we  need  not  vex 
ourselves  in  the  attempt  to  find  a  common  his- 
torical source  for  similar  primitive  myths  and 
cosmologies.  They  all  arise  from  the  individual 
sex-life  of  primitive  man  (a  view  which  I  shall 
elaborate  later),  and  thus  come  into  being 
among  remotely  severed  peoples  quite  indepen- 
dently of  historical  transmission.  The  primitive 
family  group  furnishes  all  the  materials  needed 

of  shame  and  fear  are  (sic)  aroused;  expulsion  follows,  and  sex- 
ual life  and  cultural  development  begin.  Into  this  Paradise  the 
dream  can  take  us  back  every  night."  (Pp.  206-207.)  Note 
how  closely  the  Hebrew  myth  follows  this  program:  the  naked- 
ness without  shame,  the  arousing  of  shame  through  the  conjugal 
act,  the  ineffectual  attempt  to  prevent  the  all-seeing  eye  of  Jah- 
veh  from  discovering  the  nakedness. 


10      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

for  the  formulation  of  the  most  elaborate  of 
these  myths.  And,  as  has  been  noted,  these 
myths  have  not  much  ethical  import. 

It  is  evident  from  examples  which  might  be 
multiplied  without  end,  that  primitive  religion 
originates  in  sex;  it  is  a  religion  of  externals:  of 
correct  observance  of  taboo,  of  propitiatory  sac- 
rifice, and  its  objective  is  personal.  So  far  from 
being  ethical  or  altruistic  to  any  degree,  its  end 
is  self-satisfaction  of  the  grosser  sort  and  secur- 
ity from  evil  supernatural  forces. 

2.  The  Problem  in  an  Advanced  State 
of  Culture 

With  the  growth  of  a  higher  culture,  a  people 
develops  an  ethical  sense  and  with  this  sense  a 
definite  conviction  of  sin.  This  time-worn 
phrase,  "conviction  of  sin,"  signifies  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  sense  of  inner  conflict.  The 
basis  of  this  conflict  will  be  seen  in  this  and  suc- 
ceeding chapters.  It  is  unlikely  that  primitive 
man  ever  feels  himself  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
world.  He  may  be  more  or  less  out  of  tune  with 
his  environment,  but  he  has  no  sense  of  "other- 
worldliness" ;  he  never  feels  that  "heaven  is  his 
home."  For  him,  the  life  to  come  is  a  world  of 
shadows;  the  real  world  is  here.  With  such  in- 
tellectual effort  as  his  limited  powers  are  capa- 
ble of,  he  may  question  the  universe  as  to  its 
how  and  why,  but  only  in  relation  to  his  own 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   II 

material  wants  and  their  satisfaction.  His  ad- 
justment to  his  environment  is  purely  objective, 
as  we  have  seen.  But  with  the  growth  of  a  finer 
culture  and  a  refinement  of  his  wants,  man  be- 
comes conscious  of  inner  conflict. 

The  group  life  evolves  to  a  higher  plane,  be- 
comes more  compact,  makes  increasing  demands 
upon  the  individual,  and  from  the  mass  of 
taboos,  superstitions,  myths,  which  constituted 
primitive  religion,  a  moral  code  slowly  evolves 
and  brings  pressure  to  bear  upon  him.  His  in- 
dividual demands  conflict  with  the  demands  of 
the  group  life,  a  pressure  effected  by  contiguity. 
Meanwhile,  man  retains  all  of  his  primitive  in- 
stincts, but  with  this  difference:  whereas  in  the 
savage  state,  instinct  exists  only  to  be  satisfied, 
in  the  more  highly  organized  group  life,  for  va- 
rious social  reasons,  these  instincts  must  be  re- 
pressed. Immediately  a  conflict  ensues  between 
the  demands  of  the  individual  and  the  code  of 
the  group.  Sex  desire,  the  fighting  instinct,  are 
not  destroyed  by  this  repression,  they  are  sub- 
merged in  the  Unconscious.  At  length  they  are 
severed  from  conscious  life  and  in  the  Uncon- 
scious lead  an  autonomous  life,  whence  they 
emerge  from  time  to  time  as  emotional  disturb- 
ances. 

Cut  off  from  a  man's  thinking  life,  the  primi- 
tive constantly  seeks  expression  and  finds  it  not 
through  ideation  but  through  emotion.  The 
more  sharply  repressed  the  primitive  is,   the 


12      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Stronger  the  force  with  which  it  strives  to  emerge 
from  its  subterranean  prison.    Hence  arise  the 
various  nervous  ills  of  modern  life,  the  psycho- 
neuroses,  hence  the  self-reproach  and  the  "con- 
viction of  sin."    The  very  instincts  upon  which 
his  existence  depends:  sex-instinct  that  results 
in  promiscuity,  the  predatory  instinct  that  leads 
him  to  rob  and  kill  his  neighbor,  the  fear  that 
warns  him  of  an  enemy's  approach  to  his  arbo- 
real retreat  —  these  are  inimical  to  the  success- 
ful development  of  the  group-  life.  The  stronger 
the  pressure  of  the  group-spirit,  the  more  severe 
the  conflict.    A  man,  as  Freud  says,  is  thus  fre- 
quently forced  to  "live  beyond  his  means,"  mor- 
ally speaking;  certain  primitive  instincts  strive 
within  him  for  expression,  but  such  expression 
is  contrary  to  the  moral  law  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives;  this  gives  him  a  feeling  of  di- 
vided  personality,   of  inner  stress   and  strain 
(Sturm  iind  Drang),  he  feels  out  of  tune  with 
his  environment  and  so  suffers  keen  mental  an- 
guish —  this  is  the  conviction  or  sense  of  sin. 

Freud  has  a  different  but  interesting  explana- 
tion of  the  evolution  of  the  sense  of  sin.  He  at- 
tributes it  to  a  survival  of  primitive  "blood 
guilt."  {Totem  and  Taboo,  Chapter  IV,  and 
Reflections  on  War  and  Death,  page  50  f.)  "If 
the  Son  of  God  had  to  sacrifice  his  life  to  ab- 
solve mankind  from  original  sin,  then,  according 
to  the  law  of  retaliation,  the  return  of  like  for 
like,  this  sin  must  have  been  an  act  of  killing,  a 


NATURE     OF     THE     RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM       13 

murder.  Nothing  else  could  call  for  a  life  in 
expiation.  And  if  original  sin  was  a  sin  against 
God  the  Father,  the  oldest  sin  of  mankind  must 
have  been  patricide  —  the  killing  of  the  primal 
father  of  the  primitive  human  hxDrde,  whose 
memory  picture  later  was  transfigured  into  a 
deity." 

This  is  interesting  and  ingenious,  but  there  are 
several  objections  which  may  be  raised.  In  the 
first  place,  although  the  lex  talionis  did  demand 
an  "eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  in 
primitive  society,  the  death  penalty  was  fre- 
quently inflicted  for  crimes  other  than  murder. 
In  the  earliest  form  of  the  Jewish  Torah,  we  find 
that  it  is  called  for  as  a  penalty  for  theft  and 
adultery  as  well  as  for  murder.  In  a  nomadic 
state  of  existence,  which  is  the  earliest  group- 
life,  there  were  no  provisions  for  imprisonment; 
instead  of  incarceration,  therefore,  the  criminal 
was  killed  as  the  most  convenient  method  of 
getting  rid  of  him. 

Again,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  prim- 
itive evinces  no  sense  of  blood-guilt.  To  kill  an 
enemy  is  merely  to  rid  oneself  of  his  hated  pres- 
ence and  quiet  at  a  stroke  all  fear  of  his  pursuing 
enmity.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  primitive 
man  was  capable  of  a  real  sense  of  blood-guilt. 
This  would  imply  that  he  had  a  sense  of  inner 
conflict.  It  is  far  more  likely  that  his  conflicts 
were  with  foes  without,  not  foes  within,  and  that 
once  the  enemy  was  slain,  he  thought  no  more 


14      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

about  the  matter,  save  to  take  certain  measures 
that  would  effectively  prevent  his  enemy's  shade 
returning  to  haunt  him. 

Ancient  law  is  tribal,  based  on  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  tribe,  and  has  to  do  entirely  with  ex- 
ternals. The  blood  of  the  murdered  Abel  is 
said  to  have  "cried  from  the  ground."  But 
Cain's  wrath  had  invaded  that  most  primitive 
and  most  sacred  of  social  groups,  the  family,  and 
he  must  be  punished.  He  felt  no  "blood-guilt." 
The  crying  out  of  the  spilled  blood  is  to  be  taken 
literally,  for,  as  Frazer  has  demonstrated  in  his 
Golden  Bough,  the  primitive  really  believed  that 
the  spirit  of  the  slain  dwelt  in  the  blood  and 
that  the  blood  cried  out  the  name  of  the  mur- 
derer with  a  living  voice.  The  folk-lore  of  all 
nations  has  similar  tales. 

Freud  has  well  pointed  out  that  the  desire  to 
kill  our  enemy  persists  in  the  Unconscious  even 
to-day,  and  cites  the  ill-humored  jest,  "Devil 
take  him,"  as  proof,  adding  that  it  really  means 
"Death  take  him,"  which  expresses  a  death-wish 
of  the  Unconscious,  grim  and  earnest.  Of  simi- 
lar import  is  the  popular  soldier  song: 

Some  day  I'm  going  to  murder  the  bugler, 
Some  day  they're  going  to  find  him  dead. 

This  is  expressive  of  the  resentment  of  the 
Unconscious,  irritated  at  being  rudely  aroused 
from  pleasant  slumber  by  the  notes  of  reveille. 

From  a  great  mass  of  accumulated  evidence, 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   15 

it  is  certain  that  the  primitive  survives  in  the  Un- 
conscious of  the  individual,  and  not  alone  the 
Unconscious  of  the  individual,  for  there  are 
many  traces  of  it  in  the  group  life.  It  is  well 
known  to  modern  psychology  that  dreams  are  an 
upwelling  of  the  primitive  which  finds  expression 
in  more  or  less  highly  symbolized  terms.  It  is 
less  well  known  that  myths,  which  are  the 
dreams  of  the  race,  indicate  the  same  survival 
in  the  group  life.  There  is  the  same  sort  of  sym- 
bolism, the  same  element  of  wish-fulfilment  in 
the  myth  as  in  the  dream  of  the  individual. 
Certain  myths  are  but  the  objectification  or 
projections  of  individual  experience.  Every  one 
who  has  analyzed  the  dreams  of  the  individual 
is  aware  of  the  true  significance  of  these  myths, 
which  bear  a  strong  family  likeness  though  they 
may  have  originated  among  widely  diversified 
peoples  in  widely  diversified  times  and  places. 
We  are  thus  enabled  to  determine  the  inward 
meaning  of  the  universal  flood  myth,  of  which 
variants  are  found  from  Babylonia  to  Scandi- 
navia. Poetry  and  painting  as  well  as  literature 
are  full  of  such  symbolism.  That  which  was 
literal  in  the  life  of  the  savage  becomes  symbo- 
lized and  refined  in  the  life  of  civilized  man. 

Primitive  religion  reeks  with  phallic  sym- 
bolism. Modern  religion  retains  the  imagery  and 
refines  the  symbol.  Those  forms  of  modern  re- 
ligion which  are  richest  in  symbolism  make  the 
widest  appeal,  because  their  appeal  is  to  the 


l6      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

primitive.  From  this  symbolism  the  Uncon- 
scious obtains  a  sort  of  derived,  if  not  perfect 
and  essential,  satisfaction. 

From  the  primitive  desire  to  propitiate  the 
gods  and  thus  ward  off  evil  comes  the  central 
dogma  of  Christianity,  the  dogma  of  the  Atone- 
ment. We  have  already  seen  how  and  why 
modern  man  feels  that  he  is  "born  in  sin,"  how 
his  inner  urge  conflicts  with  the  dicta  of  society, 
which  has  erected  a  moral  code  for  the  perpetu- 
ation of  the  race  with  racial  experience  as  its 
foundation.  It  therefore  follows  that  as  the 
demands  of  society  increase,  man's  difficulties 
increase,  until  in  a  highly  organized  state  of  so- 
ciety man  will  feel  that  the  weight  of  his  sins  is 
so  great  that  only  the  sacrifice  of  a  god  can  ex- 
piate them. 

Man  does  not  attain  to  a  high  degree  of  cul- 
ture without  travail.  The  primitive  man,  the 
"old  Adam,"  constantly  rises  up  to  overwhelm 
him.  Primitive  instinct  will  somehow  find  an 
outlet.  Thus  the  primitive  instinct  to  propitiate 
the  gods  becomes  refined  and  symbolized  in  the 
dogma  of  the  Atonement. 

This  is  not  peculiar  to  the  Christian  religion. 
The  god  Osiris  of  the  Egyptians  is  slain  and 
forced  to  spend  a  part  of  the  time  in  the  under- 
world ;  Dionysos  is  slain  and  his  blood  is  infused 
into  the  purple  grape;  Adonis  dies  and  comes  to 
life  in  a  flower;  the  god  of  Mithraism  dies, 
rises  again  and  thus  the  sins  of  his  followers  are 


NATURE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM   I7 

expiated;  Judaism  had  its  sacrificial  lamb, 
whence  comes  the  imagery  of  the  Christian 
dogma  of  the  Atonement.  The  Jewish  mind  was 
so  overwhelmed  with  the  sense  of  sin  that  the 
Jewish  founders  of  Christianity  could  conceive 
of  no  sacrifice  worthy  to  expiate  their  sin  ex- 
cept the  sacrifice  of  God's  First-born,  the  only 
begotten  son!  Here  indeed  is  a  subversion  of 
the  lex  talionis,  which  demanded  tooth  for  tooth 
and  eye  for  eye.  A  world  has  gone  astray 
through  the  first  man's  sin  (which  we  saw  in  the 
first  chapter  had  no  ethical  significance  what- 
ever) and  a  god  must  die.  Here,  then,  is  the 
origin  of  the  Atonement  in  man's  insatiable 
craving  to  be  right  with  his  gods,  to  be  adjusted 
to  the  universe  in  which  he  lives. 

Since  the  sex-instinct  is  the  strongest  of  all 
instincts,  the  one  upon  which  the  perpetuation 
of  the  race  depends,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  re- 
ligion should  be  full  of  idealized  sex  emotion. 
The  origins  of  modern  religion  are  so  far  back 
that  their  exploration  would  carry  us  into  the 
most  remote  reaches  of  antiquity  and  among 
strange,  primordial  peoples.  It  is  extremely 
likely  that  all  religion  has  a  phallic  origin. 
Phallic  symbols  would  naturally  be  the  most 
comprehensible  symbols  to  the  savage  mind,  and 
symbols  of  creation,  like  creation  myths,  would 
naturally  take  a  phallic  form.'     The  rites  of 

^  Coriat:  "All  creation  myths  are  really  symbolizations  of  an 
individual  birth-process  applied  to  cosmic  birth-processes:  e.g., 
the  water  is  really  the  amnotic  liquor."    See  page  148. 


l8      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

primitive  religion  are  full  of  an  obvious  sex  sym- 
bolism. The  law  upon  which  Jesus  founded  his 
gospel :  love  of  God  and  f ellowman,  appears  late 
in  man's  religious  development,  and  then  as  the 
obvious  and  logical  outgrowth  of  primitive  sex 
love.  Though  this  feeling  is  refined  and  sub- 
limated in  the  sophisticated  life  of  civilized  man, 
there  is  no  uncertainty  as  to  its  origin,  and  the 
fact  that  the  feeling  is  refined  and  sublimated 
does  not  in  the  least  invalidate  the  Freudian 
claim  for  its  sex  origin. 

A  number  of  examples  at  once  present  them- 
selves. The  serpent  of  brass  raised  up  by 
Moses  in  the  wilderness,^  the  pillar  before  the 
temple  gate  at  Jerusalem,  certain  early  Chris- 
tian symbols:  the  fish,  the  Egyptian  sign  of  life 
transformed  into  the  cross  —  all  bespeak  a  phal- 
lic origin.  And  just  because  they  are  of  phallic 
origin  and  so  represent  in  symbolized  form  the 
satisfaction  of  primitive  desire,  such  symbols 
have  universal  acceptance  and  are  universally 
efficacious  in  modern  religious  life. 

The  Christian  may  indignantly  deny  the  phal- 
lic origin  of  religion.  He  is  conscious  of  no  such 
element  in  his  own  religion.  Let  him,  however, 
open-mindedly  face  the  facts.  Nothing  is  gained 
by  closing  our  minds  to  obvious  truths;  on  the 
other  hand,  nothing  is  lost  to  religion  through  a 
resolute    facing    of    well-authenticated    facts. 

1  See  page  8. 


NATURE     OF     THE     RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM        I9 

Even  though  religion  have  a  primitive  sex  origin, 
that  is  not  necessarily  all  of  religion. 

If  we  but  saw  life  in  its  true  light,  we  should 
realize  that  the  things  of  sex  are  quite  as  whole- 
some, quite  as  beautiful,  as  any  other  aspect  of 
life.  It  is  the  prurient  mind  that  sees  evil  every- 
where and  it  is  a  very  pernicious  kind  of  educa- 
tion, the  result  of  pruriency,  which  makes  us 
want  to  repress  and  ignore  sex-instincts,  hide 
them  from  the  light  and  deny  their  existence 
and  their  influence  upon  life.  It  might  be  added 
that  if  the  Unconscious  gets  a  derived  satis- 
faction from  the  ministrations  of  religion,  at 
least  the  individual  is  saved  from  falling  into 
the  temptations  of  gross  animalism. 

Religion  is  primarily  emotional  and  there- 
fore is,  in  the  broadest  sense,  of  sex  origin. 
There  is  the  rationalistic  side  of  religion,  but  this 
makes  no  appeal  to  people  in  general.  This 
aspect  of  religion  is  well  left  to  the  philosopher 
and  the  theologian.  The  validity  of  religion  for 
the  regeneration  of  human  life  lies  not  in  its 
power  to  convince,  not  in  the  cold-blooded  and 
logical  statement  of  dogma  in  which  the  in- 
quirer is  urged  to  believe ;  it  does  not  lie  at  all  in 
the  field  of  rationalized  belief,  but  in  the  great 
emotional  upheavals  of  conversion  and  the  rev- 
erence for  the  Divine  engendered  through  the 
use  of  the  universal  symbol.  Its  good  inheres 
in  man's  emotional  life  through  which  it  works 
profound  changes  in  his  character  and  may,  if 


20      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

intelligently  applied,  free  him  from  his  inner 
conflicts  and  put  him  in  tune  with  life.  When 
these  conflicts  are  resolved,  then  the  ethical  na- 
ture of  religion  appears,  for  then,  and  not  until 
then,  is  a  man  prepared  to  take  his  place  in  the 
world  as  an  efficient  worker,  a  good  neighbor, 
and  a  good  citizen  in  the  society  in  which  he 
lives.  Whatever  happens,  he  must  be  freed 
from  his  sense  of  sin. 

The  specific  means  by  which  this  is  consum- 
mated will  be  left  for  ampler  discussion  in  suc- 
ceeding chapters. 


II.  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

AND  ITS  INFLUENCE  ON  THE 

RELIGIOUS  LIFE 

I.    The  Nature  of  the  Unconscious 

MAN  walks  through  this  life  his  footsteps 
ever  attended  by  an  unseen  companion. 
This  comrade  of  his  waking  and  his  sleeping 
hours,  like  the  Daemon  of  Socrates  or  the  fa- 
miliar of  Mohammed  which  sat  perched  upon 
his  shoulder  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  is  forever 
whispering  momentous  messages  in  his  ear.  It 
is  the  Unconscious. 

It  has  long  been  known  to  psychology  that  an 
active  psychic  life  goes  on  ''subliminally,"  or  be- 
low the  threshold  of  consciousness.  Until  very 
recently,  however,  the  true  nature  and  function 
of  the  Unconscious  were  little  known.  Certain 
evidences  of  its  activities  in  waking  life  were 
all  that  we  had.  Every  one  has  had  the  ex- 
perience of  having  to  make  a  momentous  de- 
cision or  solve  a  difficult  problem,  and  "sleep- 
ing on  it,"  when,  after  some  eight  or  nine  hours 
of  sleep,  the  decision  almost  makes  itself,  or  the 
problem  seems  to  solve  itself.  Some  activity 
has  been  at  work  which  needed  only  the  diver- 

21 


22      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

sion  of  our  attention  or  rather  a  state  of  inatten- 
tion (which  sleep  is  said  to  be  by  modern  psy- 
chology), a  state  of  passivity,  in  order  to  func- 
tion and  bring  order  out  of  chaos.  We  are 
vaguely  conscious  that  some  inner  force  has  been 
at  work.  Again,  we  are  conscious  of  vague 
emotional  disturbances  that  nothing  in  our  out- 
ward life,  no  external  stimulus,  seems  to  war- 
rant.   It  is  the  Unconscious. 

Within  the  last  few  years,  by  a  variety  of 
technical  procedures,  the  earliest  of  which  is 
hypnosis,  the  latest  and  most  efficacious  psycho- 
analysis, the  content  of  the  Unconscious,  has 
been  brought  to  light  and  its  varied  functions  de- 
termined. Other  methods  of  tapping  the  Un- 
conscious are  by  the  use  of  ouija,  planchette, 
crystal-gazing,  and  automatic  writing.  These 
have  been  successful  to  some  degree,  but  the  re- 
sult has  never  been  entirely  satisfactory,  for  the 
element  of  suggestion  is  likely  to  be  too  strong 
and  the  resistance  of  the  subject  too  great  for 
these  methods  to  penetrate  into  the  deeper  re- 
cess of  the  Unconscious. 

The  Unconscious  is  a  repository  of  memories 
and  percepts,  that  is  of  experiences  of  the  past, 
with  all  their  attendant  emotions.  It  is  a  ver- 
itable store-house  of  primitive  emotions.  In 
the  first  chapter  we  saw  how  fear  is  perhaps  the 
first  of  man's  emotions,  since  he  feels  himself 
surrounded  by  enemies  natural  and  supernatu- 
ral.   This  primitive  fear,  which  doubtless  serves 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  23 

a  useful,  protective  purpose  in  primordial  life, 
persists  in  the  Unconscious  of  civilized  man, 
where  it  seems  to  serve  no  purpose  whatever. 
Certain  racial  memories  as  well  as  the  collective 
experience  of  the  individual  are  preserved  in  the 
Unconscious.  It  never  manifests  itself  to  waking 
consciousness  as  concept  or  idea  except  as  it  is 
brought  to  light  through  some  of  the  technical 
means  mentioned  above.  It  does  manifest  itself 
emotionally  with  tremendous  and  even  over- 
whelming force  in  our  conscious  life,  and  sym- 
bolically in  dreams,  visions,  reveries,  and 
hallucinations.  "It  is  the  realm  of  repressed 
desires  and  wishes  often  carried  over  from  early 
childhood  or  even  infancy.  .  .  .  (Its)  only 
function  is  wishing  or  desiring."  (Coriat.) 

This  strange  alter  ego  is  responsible  for  our 
desires,  our  prejudices,  our  loves,  our  hates.  Who 
has  not  had  the  experience  of  meeting  a  total 
stranger  and  feeling  a  slight  wave  of  repugnance 
sweep  over  him?  The  feeling  is  unaccountable 
so  far  as  our  conscious  mental  processes  are  con- 
cerned. But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  some  uncon- 
scious memory  stored  in  the  Unconscious,  a 
memory  of  a  person  or  a  circumstance  unpleas- 
ant to  recall,  is  stirred,  hence  the  faint  wave  of 
dislike.  Being  deep-rooted  in  the  Unconscious, 
this  familiar  feeling  has  given  rise  to  the  tradi- 
tion that  first  impressions  are  trustworthy.  The 
Unconscious  has  spoken  and  declared  that  we 
are  going  to  dislike  this  person.     Every  act, 


24      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

thought,  or  mannerism  of  such  a  person  is  there- 
fore likely  to  offend  us,  no  matter  how  innocent 
it  may  be,  for  these  keep  stirring  the  recollection 
of  the  original  person  or  event  that  made  us  un- 
happy. Thus  we  fulfill  the  prophecy  of  our  own 
Unconscious. 

The  Unconscious  is  indolent  and  insatiable. 
It  has  an  aversion  to  the  needful  work  we  must 
do,  it  would  sleep  and  eat,  it  is  Appetite,  and 
constantly  demands  that  we  cease  from  useful 
work  to  appease  it. 

Nevertheless,  it  performs  certain  useful  func- 
tions. It  determines  the  nature  of  our  person- 
ality, it  is  the  foundation  of  character,  it  is  the 
subterranean  part  of  the  house  of  life,  of  which 
conscious  life  is  the  super-structure.  From  per- 
sonal experience,  and  the  testimony  of  creative 
artists:  writers,  musicians,  painters,  it  would 
seem  that  one  of  its  functions  is  to  absorb  psy- 
chic material,  re-assemble  it,  and  give  it  forth 
in  ordered,  artistic  form.  The  so-called  "incu- 
bation period"  of  a  nuclear  idea  in  which  it 
comes  to  full  development  is  the  period  during 
which  the  Unconscious  is  at  work  upon  it.  All 
inspiration,  so-called,  rises  from  the  Uncon- 
scious. 

It  is  of  far  greater  extent,  if  one  may  speak 
of  it  spatially,  than  waking  consciousness.  It 
is  unlikely  that  any  memory  of  a  lifetime,  in- 
cluding the  earliest  years,  ever  escapes  it. 

Janet  and  Charcot  in  France,  Freud  in  Vienna, 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  25 

William  James,  Morton  Prince,  and  Joseph 
Jastrow  in  America,  have  been  pioneers  in  this 
vast  and  interesting  field.  It  was  as  long  ago  as 
1 88 1  that  Freud  and  his  associate,  Breuer,  dis- 
covered that  a  hysterical  patient  obtained  no 
relief  from  her  malady  through  the  customary 
methods  of  psycho-therapy  until  certain  facts  of 
her  case,  which  had  not  been  related  because 
they  were  not  accessible  to  her  waking  conscious- 
ness, were  brought  to  light  by  a  method  which 
afterward  was  elaborated  into  the  modern  psy- 
cho-analytic treatment.  Janet  and  Charcot 
made  the  same  discovery  through  hypnotic 
methods.  Morton  Prince,  in  his  treatment  of 
disassociated  personalities,  explored  the  field  of 
the  Unconscious  and  has  contributed  some  valu- 
able information  on  the  subject.  Joseph  Jas- 
trow's  book,  The  Subconscious,  while  it  is  not 
strictly  up-to-date,  is  interesting  reading  and 
throws  light  on  the  nature  and  function  of  the 
Unconscious. 

It  is  therefore  well  established  that  such  a 
psychic  life  exists  in  both  normal  and  abnormal 
individuals.  James  went  so  far  as  to  claim  that 
the  Unconscious  of  every  individual  is  a  bay  or 
inlet  from  a  vast  sea  of  consciousness,  which 
embraces  the  subliminal  psychic  life  of  all  in- 
dividuals, and  from  the  waters  of  which  we 
draw  at  pleasure.  The  psychic  series  of  waking 
life,  he  claimed,  are  like  the  crests  of  waves  of 
the  sea,  apparently  disconnected  on  the  surface, 


26      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

but  connected  in  one  logical  sequence  beneath 
the  surface.  This  would  bear  out  Emerson's 
and  Browning's  contention  that  the  seeming  dis- 
continuity of  life  is  due  to  our  lack  of  grasp  of 
the  whole.  Prince  {The  Unconscious,  page  21) 
speaks  of  a  patient  who  in  a  hypnotic  state 
claimed  to  be  in  a  mental  world  wherein  is  to 
be  found  "not  only  everything  that  has  ever 
happened  or  will  happen,  but  all  thoughts, 
dreams,  imaginations."  Patients  as  they  go 
under  the  influence  of  an  anaesthetic  report  a 
feeling  of  an  enlarged  field  of  consciousness,  as 
if  their  consciousness  widened  until  it  grasped 
the  universe.  This,  of  course,  is  due  to  a  dis- 
persion of  attention,  to  a  loss  of  focus,  compa- 
rable to  that  of  a  day-dream;  the  patient  actu- 
ally has  less  grasp  of  reality,  rather  than  more, 
his  attention  is  not  increased  but  diffused,  and 
his  faculties  are  soon  entirely  dispersed  in  a  deep 
sleep,  far  deeper  than  normal.  This  theory  of 
James  therefore  remains  to  be  proved.  The 
Unconscious  is  fantastic  enough  in  its  varied 
manifestations  without  recourse  to  metaphysics. 
In  the  Unconscious  inheres  what  Freud  calls 
the  "complex."  The  term  would  naturally  de- 
note a  combination  of  things.  It  is  used  by 
Freud  to  signify  "an  idea  around  which  emo- 
tions are  grouped  and  in  which  they  center." 
It  might  be  compared  to  a  snow-ball  rolling 
down  hill.  It  not  only  gathers  momentum  as  it 
rolls,  but  it  catches  up  more  snow,  pebbles,  twigs, 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  27 

as  it  rolls,  until,  if  only  the  slope  be  long  enough, 
it  will  become  an  avalanche,  catching  up  trees, 
houses,  villages,  and  hurling  them  to  destruc- 
tion. The  complex  has  its  beginning  in  very- 
early  life,  so  early  that  its  beginning  escapes 
conscious  memory.  It  may  start  from  some 
event  of  an  unpleasant  nature;  it  is  mostly  due 
to  fixations  which  are  never  broken  up.  It  is  not 
always  evil.  All  psychic  life  develops  through 
some  complex.  The  avaricious  person  has  a 
"money  complex."  Freud  speaks  of  a  "pro- 
fession complex,"  which  makes  a  man  jealous 
for  his  own  success  in  his  profession.  There  are 
so-called  "habit  complexes,"  by  which  a  man 
learns  to  sink  the  technique  of,  let  us  say,  the 
machinist  or  the  pianist,  into  the  mechanical, 
leaving  his  mind  free  for  the  more  delicate  de- 
tails of  his  work,  or  the  interpretative  side  of 
music.  A  complex  is  really  what  may  be  termed 
a  constellation;  it  is  like  stars  that  group  them- 
selves together;  in  this  constellation  we  group 
ideas  and  give  them  an  emotional  tinge.  As  we 
shall  see  later,  a  complex  will  gather  to  itself 
any  new  ideas  which  come  into  consciousness 
and  give  them  its  own  emotional  tinge.  The 
shade  of  emotion  which  any  new  idea  takes  on 
is  due  to  some  complex.  Life,  as  we  shall  see 
in  the  chapter  on  the  "Motivation  of  Human 
Life,"  is  complex-ruled. 

Now  there  are  in  our  psychic  life  what  have 
been  called  "fixations."    The  child  fixes  its  love 


28      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

upon  its  mother,  but  in  the  earliest  years  only 
as  a  means  of  gratifying  its  appetite.  It  derives 
nourishment  from  her;  she  tends  it,  puts  it  to 
bed,  feeds  it.  She  is  its  first  love.  Thus  the 
earliest  object  of  its  love  is  its  mother.  This  is 
perfectly  normal  in  the  child;  but  when  it 
reaches  the  age  of  puberty,  its  love  should  be 
turned  away  from  the  mother  to  the  world  with- 
out. So  long  as  its  love  is  fixed  entirely  upon 
the  mother,  it  is  selfish,  egocentric. 

From  such  a  fixation  of  love  upon  one  or  the 
other  parent  which  persists  beyond  the  earliest 
childhood,  proceeds  the  most  vicious  complex 
which  the  new  psychology  has  so  far  discovered. 
That  is  the  CEdipus-complex.  The  neuroses,  or 
nervous  ills,  are  due  to  some  vicious  complex. 
The  most  fruitful  in  this  respect  is  the  CEdipus- 
complex,  founded  upon  the  (Edipus-myth. 

(Edipus  was  the  son  of  Laius,  king  of  Thebes, 
and  Jocasta.  An  oracle  informed  his  father  that 
his  son,  still  unborn,  would  be  his  murderer. 
Thereupon  the  father  planned  his  destruction. 
He  was,  however,  rescued  and  was  brought  up  at 
a  foreign  court  as  the  king's  son.  Being  in  doubt 
as  to  his  origin,  he  consulted  an  oracle,  and  was 
told  to  avoid  his  native  place,  for  he  was  des- 
tined to  become  the  murderer  of  his  father  and 
the  husband  of  his  mother.  He  met  King  Laius, 
his  father,  on  the  road  leading  away  from  his 
supposed  home  and  killed  him  in  a  sudden  quar- 
rel.   He  came  to  the  gates  of  Thebes,  where  he 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  29 

solved  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  and  was  elected 
king  by  the  Thebans  and  given  the  hand  of  Jo- 
casta,  his  mother,  as  a  reward.  All  seemed  to 
go  well  for  some  years,  until  finally  a  plague 
broke  out.  Again  the  oracle  was  consulted  and 
it  answered  that  when  the  murderer  of  Laius  was 
discovered  and  driven  from  the  country,  the 
plague  would  cease.  It  transpired  that  (Edipus 
was  the  murderer  and  that  he  was  the  son  of  the 
murdered  man,  therefore  the  son  of  Jocasta,  by 
whom  he  had  had  two  sons  and  two  daughters. 
Thus  the  oracle  was  fulfilled:  he  was  the  mur- 
derer of  his  father  and  had  become  the  husband 
of  his  mother  by  whom  he  had  children.  (Edi- 
pus then  put  out  his  own  eyes  and  wandered 
forth  from  his  native  place,  for  the  oracle  had 
been  fulfilled.  Sophocles  wrought  this  legend 
into  one  of  the  most  moving  tragedies  ever 
written. 

When  the  fixation  of  infantile  love  upon  the 
mother,  a  perfectly  normal  thing  in  early  child- 
hood, persists  into  youth  and  maturity,  it  be- 
comes a  vicious  complex.  The  complex  is 
normal  in  infancy,  abnormal  afterward.  This 
Freud  has  called  the  "CEdipus-complex."  If 
the  fixation  persists,  the  individual  is  inhibited 
in  his  normal  love-hfe,  and  is  almost  certain  to 
develop  some  neurosis  in  the  struggle  that  en- 
sues between  the  demands  of  society  and  the 
inner  urge  of  his  bad  complex.  When  the  fixa- 
tion of  the  male  child  is  reversed,  and  we  have  a 


30      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

fixation  of  the  female  child  upon  the  father,  we 
have  the  so-called  Electra-complex  which  is  just 
a  reversal  of  the  (Edipus-complex.  Freud  goes 
so  far  as  to  claim  that  all  neuroses  in  the  male 
are  due  to  some  form  of  the  (Edipus-complex. 

There  is  nothing  essentially  abnormal  about 
such  a  complex  in  itself.  The  abnormality  con- 
sists in  the  retention  of  it  beyond  early  child- 
hood. The  normal  individual  breaks  away  from 
his  infantile  fixations  and  fixes  his  love 
upon  some  individual  of  the  opposite  sex  in  the 
outer  world.  But  the  victim  of  the  CEdipus- 
complex  cannot  love  normally.  He  becomes 
"introverted,"  his  love-life  is  directed  to  his 
mother  or  to  her  image  in  his  mind,  and  he  is 
prevented  from  loving  any  other.  This  often 
results  in  auto-eroticism,  self-love,  a  very  vicious 
thing.  The  fixation,  then,  results  in  a  repression 
of  the  normal  sex-craving.  At  first  glance,  this 
might  not  seem  so  disastrous,  inasmuch  as  the 
sex-feeling  is  over-developed  in  some  individu- 
als, and  in  others  it  can  never  come  to  expression 
all  their  life  long.  However,  the  worst  aspect 
of  it  is  that  the  instinct  is  not  in  such  cases 
destroyed  or  atrophied,  it  is  merely  repressed 
into  the  Unconscious  by  stern  and  unremitting 
effort,  whence  it  forces  its  way  to  expression 
along  some  path  other  than  normal.  From  this 
repression  and  the  consequent  explosions  arise 
the  neuroses,  the  hysterias,  homoeroticism^  and 

^  Homoeroticism    (homosexuality),  or  love  for  the  same  sex, 
will  be  explained  in  a  later  chapter. 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  3I 

certain  of  the  psychoses.     Great  unhappiness, 
deep  despair,  is  the  result. 

Moreover,  and  this  seems  one  of  the  saddest 
phases  of  the  whole  problem,  when  the  energy 
generated  by  sex-instinct  is  violently  repressed, 
all  other  energy  is  repressed,  and  the  individual, 
incapable,  enervated,  listless,  depressed  he 
knows  not  why,  lives  far  below  his  normal  level 
of  energy  and  usefulness.  He  is  unfitted  for 
society,  unfitted  to  do  his  life-work  and  fight 
his  life's  battles.  This  is  because  his  energy  is 
dissipated  by  a  needless  and  futile  unconscious 
inner  conflict.  How  he  may  resolve  this  conflict 
must  be  left  for  discussion  in  a  later  chapter. 

How  widespread  traces  of  neurotic  taint  are, 
no  one  can  realize  until  his  eyes  are  opened.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  nine  persons  out  of  ten  are  not 
living  up  to  the  level  of  their  full  capacity  nor 
directing  all  their  available  energy  toward  social 
ends,  that  not  one  in  ten  tastes  life's  beaker 
brimming  full.  Some  inner  conflict  inhibits  the 
full  use  of  their  powers. 

What  an  interesting  side-light  is  thrown  upon 
religion  by  our  knowledge  of  the  Unconscious! 
Religion,  as  I  have  said,  is  primarily  emotional 
rather  than  intellectual  or  volitional.  Inasmuch 
as  our  emotional  life  inheres  in  the  Unconscious, 
it  is  readily  seen  that  the  Unconscious  must  play 
an  important  role  in  the  formation  of  religious 
ideals,  the  development  of  religious  thought,  the 
construction  of  religious  systems.    It  has  been 


32      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

cynically  remarked  that  the  German  Reforma- 
tion was  started  because  the  monk  Luther  fell 
in  love  with  a  nun.  This  of  course  is  but  ill- 
humored  jest,  nevertheless  these  emotions  which 
are  the  very  basis  of  human  life  have  played  a 
large  part  in  the  determination  of  the  world's 
thought  in  Religion. 


2.    The  Influence  of  the  Unconscious  on 
Religious  Ideals 

The  neurologist  is  well  aware  that  the  object 
of  every  neurosis  is  a  flight  from  reality.  The 
neurotic  finds  reality  too  harsh  to  bear,  and 
actually  takes  refuge  in  a  serious  nervous  ill- 
ness in  which  he  creates  a  world  to  suit  his  own 
fancy.  A  patient  suffering  from  a  heavy  neuro- 
sis remarked  to  me,  "The  whole  world  seems  un- 
real to  me,  it  is  a  dream-world,  a  world  of  shad- 
ows. Reality  is  in  the  world  to  come."  This 
shut-in  tendency^  is  characteristic  of  the  neu- 
roses, certain  of  the  psychoses,  and  a  like  trend 
of  thought  is  to  be  observed  in  religious  systems. 
When  this  "other-worldliness"  permeates  a  so- 
cial group,  it  gives  rise  to  a  new  religious  move- 
ment. The  more  harsh  and  stern  the  real  world 
in  which  the  religious  devotee  dwells,  the 
brighter  and  more  perfect  the  heavenly  kingdom, 
the  world  of  his  fancy. 

The  Christian  religion  had  its  rise  under  hard 

1  Called  by  the  new  psychology  "introversion." 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  33 

conditions  in  a  nation  which  had  long  lost  its 
autonomy.  The  little  nation  of  Israel  had, 
in  the  time  of  Jesus,  become  but  an  insignificant 
part  of  the  great  Graeco-Roman  world,  a  small 
Roman  province  with  a  Roman  governor.  Its 
people  suffered  from  violent  repression  of  all 
national  ambition  and  ideals.  All  was  lost  save 
their  sense  of  nationality,  their  pride  of  race.  To 
be  sure,  there  was  a  religio-political  body  which 
had  nominal  authority,  the  Sanhedrim,  entirely 
Jewish  in  its  constituency.  But  the  trial  of 
Jesus,  with  its  tragic  conclusion  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  illustrates  the  futility  of  the  Sanhedrim's 
attempts  to  exercise  political  authority.  That 
such  a  body  had  any  real  power  was  merely  a 
convention,  a  convenient  fiction  by  which  an 
oppressed  and  miserable  people  could  be  kept 
tolerably  contented  and  satisfied. 

Here,  then,  was  this  oppressed  people,  help- 
less, defeated  in  their  national  ambitions  and 
purposes,  powerless  to  realize  their  national 
ideals,  with  little  hope  in  the  present.  For  many 
years  prior  to  the  life  of  Jesus  they  had  been 
looking  for  adventitious  aid.  Some  time  in  the 
future,  God  would  set  up  a  heavenly  kingdom, 
a  New  Jerusalem  upon  earth,  with  a  Messiah  as 
its  priest-king.  (This,  of  course,  was  an  earthly 
Paradise  which  was  merely  a  projection  of  their 
own  wishes.)  The  temple  service  would  be  re- 
stored in  all  its  traditional  magnificence  and 
splendor:  peace  and  prosperity  would  supersede 


34      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

misery  and  want.  The  chosen  people,  the  Jews, 
would  dwell  in  this  heavenly  city,  feasting  and 
rejoicing,  under  the  beneficent  rule  of  their  Mes- 
siah, bathed  in  a  light  that  never  shone  on  sea  or 
land. 

Here  we  have  a  group-wish  exactly  analogous 
to  the  individual's  neurotic  desire  to  escape  from 
the  objective  world  into  a  self-created  kingdom. 
The  dream  of  an  individual  is  a  wish-fulfilment ; 
the  New  Jerusalem  of  Jewish  apocalyptic  litera- 
ture is  the  dream,  the  wish-fulfilment  of  a  whole 
people. 

We  are  here  taken  into  the  region  of  myth, 
which,  as  Freud  and  Abraham  {Dreams  and 
Myths)  have  clearly  demonstrated,  represents 
the  dream-life  of  the  race,  with  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  heightened  existence,  idealized  con- 
ditions, and  the  element  of  wish-fulfilment 
strongly  emphasized. 

Such  was  the  condition,  such  were  the  dreams 
of  the  Jewish  people  when  Christianity  was 
born.  Jesus,  except  for  certain  Masochistic  or 
self-abasement  tendencies,  seems  to  have  been 
free  from  neurosis.  He  advocated  the  setting 
free  of  the  love-life  which  the  religion  of 
Judaism  had  repressed.  He  advocated  the 
ethical  application  of  the  Gospel  of  love  in  man's 
every-day  life.  His  Gospel  was  one  of  expres- 
sion, not  repression. 

Hardly  was  this  Gospel  proclaimed,  when  its 
stream    was    mingled    with    the    apocalyptic 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  35 

idealism  of  the  Jewish  race.  Hardly  was  Jesus 
dead,  when  the  new-born  Christian  movement 
became  a  little,  provincial  Jewish  sect  in  Jeru- 
salem with  James,  his  brother,  as  its  leader, 
which  insisted  upon  circumcision  as  a  condition 
of  membership!  All  the  old  repressions  were 
again  in  force. 

And  now  a  new  figure  appears  upon  the  scene 
and  his  appearance  is  portentous.  It  is  Paul,  the 
Jewish  tent-maker,  trained  in  Rabbinical  schools 
and  the  philosophy  of  the  Graeco-Roman  world. 
Like  so  many  theologians,  past  and  present,  Paul 
is  the  victim  of  a  heavy  neurosis.  It  is  his  "thorn 
in  the  flesh."  His  own  love-life  is  violently  re- 
pressed. He  is  embittered  with  life  because  he 
cannot  fulfill  the  law  of  the  flesh;  he  seeks  to 
compensate  by  strict  observance  of  the  Jewish 
ecclesiastical  law;  he  is  seeking  outlet  for  vio- 
lently repressed  emotion.  He  is  sadistic,  derives 
pleasure  from  the  suffering  of  others.  On  no 
other  theory  can  the  personality  of  Paul  be 
understood.  Paul  becomes  the  protagonist  of 
orthodox  Judaism  which  is  assailed  by  this  new 
sect  of  Christians;  he  looks  on  with  lustful 
pleasure  while  the  youthful  Stephen  is  stoned. 

"As  a  Jew,"  says  Oskar  Pfister  (pages  462- 
463,  the  Psycho-analytic  Method) ,  "(Paul) 
suffers  from  an  anxiety-neurosis  because  he  can- 
not fulfill  the  'law  of  the  flesh'  or  the  'law  in  the 
members'  according  to  the  law  of  the  spirit.  So 
much  the  more  fanatically  does  he  hold  to  the 


36      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

'Law  of  Moses'  (obsessional  neurotic  displace- 
ment). He  hates  Christ  because  the  latter  re- 
places the  law  by  the  free  demands  of  love,  and 
therewith  disturbs  the  complex-need,  the  cere- 
monialism and  orthodoxy." 

Paul  is  the  victim  of  hysterical  hallucinations. 
He  has  been  termed  an  epileptic;  he  exhibits 
much  more  clearly  the  symptoms  of  an  anxiety- 
hysteria.  As  he  proceeds  upon  the  road  to  Dam- 
ascus with  authority  from  the  high-priest  to 
persecute  the  hated  Christians,  he  suffers  an  in- 
tense anxiety-attack:  there  is  a  sudden  welling- 
up  of  repressed  emotion,  there  is  a  vision,  a 
bright  light  and  a  voice  (visual  and  auditory 
hallucinations).  This  is  coincident  with  a  "fall- 
ing" and  is  immediately  followed  by  hysterical 
blindness.  He  has  refused  to  see  the  truth  of 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  therefore,  his  Unconscious 
declares,  he  shall  see  nothing.^    Henceforth,  by 

1  In  Acts  9: if.  we  read:  "But  Saul  yet  breathing  threatening 
and  slaughter  against  the  disciples  of  the  Lord,  went  unto  the 
high-priest  and  asked  of  him  letters  to  Damascus,"  etc.  It  is 
evident  that  Paul  came  almost  immediately  from  the  stoning  of 
the  young  Stephen,  where  he  had  been  an  interested,  if  horrified, 
onlooker.  All  his  sadistic  passions  were  doubtless  roused  by  the 
sight.  But  doubtless,  likewise,  he  was  horrified  at  this  cruel, 
bloody  death.  He  wanted  to  see  no  more.  When,  therefore,  there 
was  the  great  uprush  of  hysterical  emotion  as  he  proceeded 
along  the  Damascus  road,  there  was  a  great  revulsion  of  feeling. 
Paul  desired  to  shut  out  from  consciousness  the  sight  of  the 
dying  Stephen,  "falling  asleep"  with  words  of  forgiveness  upon 
his  lips.  Doubtless  he  thought,  "Would  that  I  had  never  seen  the 
sight!"     He  violently  repressed  the  memory;  he  refused  to  see 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  37 

the  principle  of  ambivalence,  the  law  of  op- 
posites,  by  which  an  emotion  is  turned  into  one 
of  opposing  character,  Paul  is  masochistic 
whereas  before  he  was  strongly  sadistic.  Hence- 
forth he  will  transfer  to  his  own  person  the 
cruelties  which  before  he  inflicted  upon  others. 
Only  thus  can  we  understand  the  endurance  of 
his  later  life. 

Pfister  considers  that  in  the  emotional  ca- 
tharsis of  the  significant  event  on  the  Damascus 
road,  Paul  "abreacted"  (a  term  used  by  Freud 
for  getting  rid  of  painful  emotional  matter  by 
bringing  it  into  consciousness  and  re-living  it) 
and  freed  himself  from  the  repression  caused  by 
his  complex  (undoubtedly  the  (Edipus-com- 
plex),  and  that  thereafter  Paul  was  a  free  man. 
This  is  improbable  in  view  of  his  later  teachings. 
To  the  end  of  his  life  he  is  opposed  to  the  normal 
love-life,  advises  that  his  followers  refrain  from 
marriage,  since  marriage  means  yielding  to  the 
^'lusts  of  the  flesh,"  evinces  an  abnormal  attitude 

it.  By  the  well-known  mechanism  that  causes  hysterical  blind- 
ness, his  wish  was  fulfilled.  He  not  only  ceased  to  see  the  painful 
spectacle  in  which  he  had  taken  so  active  a  part,  but  he  ceased 
to  see  anything.  Coriat  says  {Abnormal  Psychology,  Second 
Edition,  page  308) :  "Hysterical  blindness  may  also  occur,  usu- 
ally appearing  and  disappearing  suddenly.  In  all  these  hysterical 
disturbances  of  sight  the  optic  nerve  is  found  to  be  absolutely 
normal.  ..."  Pfister  reports  in  his  Psycho-analytic  Method 
cases  of  greatly  dimmed  vision.  Wilfrid  Lay  (Man's  Uncon- 
scious Conflict,  page  222)  reports  the  case  of  a  man  who  hated 
his  wife  and  suffered  from  hysterical  blindness,  a  kind  of  re- 
fusal to  see  her  which  became  a  general  refusal  to  see  anything. 


38      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

toward  woman,  in  that  he  advises  her  to  be  in 
subjection  to  man,  to  keep  silent  in  the  churches 
and  to  appear  with  head  (that  is,  face)  covered 
in  Christian  assemblage. 

It  was  the  Gospel  of  Paul,  not  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus,  which  finally  conquered  the  Mediter- 
ranean world.  Upon  this  Gospel  and  the 
Johannine  ideal  modern  Christianity  is  founded, 
with  all  of  its  Puritanical  ideals,  its  ignoring  of 
sex,  its  "subduing  of  the  flesh,"  the  repression 
of  natural  instinct,  the  attention  diverted  from 
the  world  of  present-day  reality  to  the  unknown 
future  when  the  saints  shall  inherit  houses  not 
made  with  hands. 

This  Gospel  spread  rapidly  through  the  sub- 
merged classes  of  the  Mediterranean  world;  it 
was  a  "slaves'  religion"  which  held  out  hopes  to 
a  class  who  had  no  hope  in  the  present,  of  better 
things  to  come  in  the  life  beyond  death.  By  fo- 
cussing their  attention  upon  the  Heavenly  King- 
dom, it  made  them  content  to  endure  their 
dreary  earthly  life  with  toleration  and  some 
equanimity,  if  not  with  satisfaction. 

The  neurotic  symptoms  of  Paul  are  to  be 
noted  in  the  collective  ideals  and  life  of  early 
Christendom.  There  is,  for  instance,  a  strong 
masochistic  element  which  has  survived  even  to 
this  day.  The  Roman  Christians  were  not  only 
willing  and  ready  for  martyrdom  for  the  sake  of 
their  belief,  they  actually  courted  it,  partly,  at 
least,  for  the  masochistic  pleasure  they  derived 


NATURE     OF     THE     UNCONSCIOUS  39 

from  suffering,  and  partly  as  a  means  of  quick 
deliverance  from  the  intolerable  present  into  a 
glowing  land  of  the  future  where  they  were  to 
receive  their  reward. 

Christianity  has  ignored  the  sex  question  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  condemns  the  satisfaction  of 
natural  instinct  —  this  is  Christianity's  legiti- 
mate inheritance  from  the  neurotic  Paul.  To 
the  extent  that  it  has  followed  his  teaching,  it 
has  upheld  an  emasculate,  ascetic  ideal,  an  ideal 
of  unsexed  sainthood  rather  than  an  ideal  of 
social  usefulness.  The  resulting  repression,  as 
we  have  seen,  has  militated  against  the  highest 
social  efficiency,  for  it  impairs  human  energy. 
Until  recently,  at  least  (see  chapter  on  "The 
Changing  Basis  of  Religion"  for  the  other  side 
of  the  picture),  withdrawal  from  a  harsh  and 
cruel  world  which  slew  its  saints  and  prophets 
and  despitefully  used  those  whose  feet  were  set 
in  the  Way  was  the  set  purpose  and  most  con- 
vincing evidence  of  perfect,  though  persecuted, 
sainthood.  Those  Christians  who  have  been 
condemned  by  circumstances  to  be  in  the  world, 
have  always  taken  a  certain  Pharisaic  pride  in 
the  fact  that  they  are  not  of  the  world.  Again, 
the  heritage  of  Paul. 

The  further  we  look  into  the  matter,  the  more 
we  see  the  prominent  role  that  the  Unconscious, 
especially  in  certain  abnormal  activities,  has 
played  in  religion  and  especially  the  Christian 
religion.     Here  is  the  sequence:  first,  a  Jesus 


40      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

seeking  to  free  men  from  the  evil  restrictions 
and  vicious  repressions  of  Pharisaic,  formalistic 
religion ;  then  a  Paul,  with  heavy  neurotic  taint, 
restoring  the  Pharisaic  mode  of  life  and  impos- 
ing new  restrictions  even  while  he  sought  to 
preach  the  freedom  of  the  Christian  Gospel; 
then,  a  whole  people  with  face  averted  from  the 
present  where  their  work  and  their  life-interests 
lay,  and  turned  toward  the  Heavenly  City 
through  whose  portals  they  hoped  soon  to  pass; 
finally,  this  neurotic,  unnatural,  morbid  ideal 
pursuing  generation  after  generation  even  down 
to  the  present  day. 

In  succeeding  chapters  we  shall  trace  the 
course  of  neuroses  and  hysterias  in  certain  re- 
ligious movements  and  certain  religious  types. 
As  preparation  for  such  discussion,  however,  it 
is  well  to  look  into  the  unconscious  motivation 
of  human  life. 


III.    THE  MOTIVATION  OF 
HUMAN  LIFE 

NO  man  ever  acts  or  can  act  from  entirely- 
unmixed  and  disinterested  motives.  Our 
altruistic  feelings  and  selfless  deeds  are  bound 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  to  have  some  ele- 
ment of  the  purely  personal  and  individual;  the 
lofty  thoughts  of  the  generous  lover  of  man- 
kind, the  deeds  of  greatest  heroism,  are  subject 
in  some  measure  to  the  "pleasure-pain  reac- 
tion"; they  are  determined  to  some  degree  by 
their  effect  upon  our  own  lives.  Were  a  man  to 
rise  entirely  above  this  plane  he  would  be  more 
than  human;  even  Jesus  cried  out  in  a  moment 
of  agony,  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me?"  We  must  give  the  Hedonistic 
philosophers  a  qualified  approval;  they  are 
partly  right;  their  fault  lies  in  their  extrava- 
gance, in  their  inordinate  claims  that  all  men 
act  always  from  none  but  selfish  motives. 

We  may  indignantly  deny  that  all  our  deeds 
have  some  admixture  of  selfish  motive,  espe- 
cially if  we  are  socially  minded.  This  is  not 
surprising,  for  the  selfish  element  in  unselfish 
acts  lies  not  in  the  Conscious,  but  in  the  Uncon- 
scious, which  is  a  veritable  vortex  of  selfish 
impulse. 

41 


42      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Let  US  see  how  this  unconscious  motivation 
works  out  in  human  life,  how  it  is  manifested  in 
symptomatic  acts  of  every-day  and  in  dreams 
at  night.  When  a  subject  is  hypnotized  and  told 
that  at  a  certain  hour,  it  may  be  as  late  as  the 
following  day,  when  he  has  regained  his  waking 
consciousness,  he  will  perform  a  given  act,  but 
will  forget  the  suggestion  of  the  hypnotist,  it 
invariably  happens  that  he  carries  out  the  sug- 
gestion; when  asked  why  he  did  this,  he  will  not 
reply  that  he  was  told  to  do  it  and  is  carrying 
out  the  suggestion  of  another,  but  will  give  some 
ratioral  pretext.  A  teacher  was  told  during 
hypnotic  trance  that  at  a  certain  hour  she  would 
remove  a  wooden  cone  from  her  desk  and  place 
it  upon  the  flat  top  of  the  school-room  stove. 
She  did  so,  but  when  asked  her  reason  for  this 
somewhat  unusual  act,  replied  that  the  cone  was 
in  her  way  and  that  she  needed  her  desk  cleared 
for  certain  papers  which  she  wished  to  examine. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  all  of  our  acts  are  thus 
unconsciously  as  well  as  consciously  motivated. 
The  Unconscious  assists  us  in  all  our  decisions 
from  the  slight  and  apparently  petty  acts  of 
every-day  to  those  momentous  decisions  that 
decide  a  life-career.  Thus,  many  a  man  has 
gone  on  the  stage  or  into  some  similar  profession 
where  he  will  be  in  the  limelight  because  there 
remains  in  his  Unconscious  a  remnant  of  that 
childish  "exhibitionism"  which  every  individual 
manifests  at  some  time  in  his  early  life,  this  in- 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE        43 

fantile  desire  to  show  himself  before  the  public. 
Every  one  has  had  dreams  of  being  unclothed 
in  public,  and  the  significant  aspect  of  the 
matter  is  that  he  felt  no  concern,  often  it  is 
rather  a  feeling  of  elation.  The  Arabian  Nights 
has  a  folk-tale  of  a  prince  who  was  caught  up 
by  a  genie  and  set  down  before  the  gate  of  a 
distant  city  in  his  night  attire.  The  little  symp- 
tomatic acts  of  every-day  life  are  full  of  such 
unconscious  motivation.  One  morning  I  was 
thinking  of  some  acquaintances  who  were  os- 
tentatious, empty-headed,  and  purse-proud. 
Soon  afterward  a  bit  of  music  began  singing 
itself  through  my  consciousness.  At  first  I  was 
at  a  loss  to  identify  it;  then  I  recognized  it  as 
the  final  movement  of  Sir  Edward  Elgar's 
march,  "Pomp  and  Circumstance,"  a  composi- 
tion which  the  composer  admitted  to  be  some- 
what empty  and  pretentious,  and  which  had  not 
come  to  mind  in  some  years.  Afterward,  when 
I  endeavored  consciously  to  recall  this  bit,  it 
eluded  me  and  does  to  this  day. 

Giving  a  logical  pretext  for  the  unconsciously 
motivated  act  is  called  "rationalization."  To 
satisfy  its  craving  for  the  limelight,  the  Uncon- 
scious will  go  to  great  extremes.  However,  the 
real  unconscious  motive  for  acts  that  reveal  a 
desire  for  esteem  could  not  be  divulged  to  our 
fellows,  it  would  appear  too  puerile;  hence  we 
must  furnish  some  altruistic  or  at  least  rational 
reason  for  our  acts.    A  man  may  not  even  be 


44      RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

conscious  that  he  desires  to  be  considered  su- 
perior to  his  fellows  or  even  desires  to  feel  that 
way,  but  in  his  Unconscious  this  is  one  of  his 
strongest  cravings.  Let  us  state  it  conversely: 
no  one  is  so  unhappy  as  he  who  is  consistently 
and  completely  ignored  by  his  fellow  men.  The 
adolescent  girl,  just  waking  to  the  meaning  of 
life,  just  beginning  to  grow  socially  minded, 
craving  companionship  and  affectionate  notice, 
is,  on  account  of  some  personal  defect  —  phys- 
ical plainness  or  lack  of  personal  charm  —  rele- 
gated to  the  background.  Perhaps  a  more 
attractive  sister  claims  the  attention  of  youthful 
admirers.  At  once  the  young  girl  is  desperately 
unhappy.  Her  Unconscious  is  thwarted  in  its 
deepest  desire.  So  with  men  in  business  or  in 
politics;  some  men  will  go  to  any  lengths  to  be 
"in  the  public  eye,"  so  strong  and  insatiable  is 
this  craving.  In  greater  or  less  degree,  we  all 
long  for  attention  and  admiration.  A  certain 
amount  is  necessary  for  our  well-being  and  hap- 
piness. It  furnishes  a  stimulus  for  activity.  To 
withdraw  utterly  from  the  world  and  live  in  se- 
clusion is  one  of  the  greatest  hardships  man  can 
endure,  compensated  for  only  by  the  fact  that 
he  is  thus  enabled  to  do  some  useful  work  in 
seclusion  or  that  it  gives  him  opportunity  to 
build  up  an  autistic  world  of  his  own. 

There  is  no  particular  harm  in  this  mixed 
motivation  in  human  life  except  where  it  leads 
men  to  trample  upon  other  lives  in  order  to  sue- 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE        45 

ceed.  The  esteem  in  which  a  man  is  held  who 
has  made  a  definite  and  valuable  contribution 
to  human  knowledge,  or  has  striven  in  any  social 
activity  to  make  the  world  better,  is  the  just 
meed  of  his  struggle  and  privation.  But  it  is 
well  for  men  to  be  conscious  of  this  mixed 
motivation;  it  is  well  for  them  to  face  facts 
rather  than  to  live  in  a  world  of  convenient  self- 
deception.  A  short  auto-analysis  will  often  re- 
veal to  a  man  the  origin  of  his  motives. 

As  an  example  of  the  self-deception  practiced 
from  unconscious  motives,  we  might  cite  the  in- 
dividual who  "enjoys  ill  health."  He  thinks  he 
suffers,  and  no  doubt  he  does,  but  day  and  night 
he  is  dinning  in  the  ears  of  unwilling  listeners 
the  story  of  his  sufferings.  He  takes  keen  pleas- 
ure in  this  recital,  oft-repeated,  for  it  lends  him 
a  certain  distinction.  He  has  a  rare  disease, 
chronic  and  incurable;  ten  eminent  physicians 
have  worked  on  his  case  without  result;  he  has 
spent  thousands  of  dollars  and  obtained  no  re- 
lief. He  is  thus  set  apart  from  his  fellows,  he 
is  a  rara  avis  and  by  this  means  gains  a  distinc- 
tion he  would  otherwise  lack.  He  does  not 
realize  that  he  derives  pleasure  from  his  own 
unhappiness  and  suffering.  This  trivial  ex- 
ample illustrates  a  common  trait,  namely,  "com- 
pensation." 

We  have  a  proverb,  "to  make  a  virtue  of 
necessity."  The  Unconscious,  wherever  there 
is  physical  weakness  or  psychic  disability,  will 


46      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

strive  to  compensate  for  it  in  another  direction, 
or  even  to  enthrone  that  very  weakness  as  a 
virtue.  The  conversation  of  children  aptly  il- 
lustrates this  sort  of  compensation.  One  boy  is 
stronger  than  another  and  comes  off  victorious 
in  a  hand-to-hand  struggle.  "Never  mind," 
says  the  defeated  boy,  "my  father  can  whip 
your  father,"  or,  "My  father  is  richer  than  your 
father,"  or,  "My  father  knows  everything." 
This  trait  is  most  clearly  seen  in  children;  in 
adult  life  it  is  covered  with  a  decent  cloak  of 
social  tact. 

Nevertheless,  the  trait  persists;  the  Uncon- 
scious will  not  tolerate  a  feeling  of  inferiority; 
in  every  life  there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  com- 
pensate for  any  sort  of  weakness.  Napoleon 
Buonaparte  was  a  man  of  short  stature  with 
some  neurotic  or  epileptic  weakness.  He  com- 
pensated for  this  weakness  by  laying  plans  to 
conquer  the  world.  Julius  Caesar  was  a  slight 
man,  "with  a  weak  voice,"  also  subject  to  some 
physical  or  psychic  disability.  He,  too,  became 
a  conqueror.  We  have  already  noted  Paul's 
neurosis  and  his  endeavors  at  compensation. 
The  man  who  through  physical  weakness  can- 
not excell  in  physical  contests,  hies  him  to  his 
books  and  seeks  to  excell  in  scholarship.  A  man 
who  lacks  commanding  personality  will  strive  to 
become  wealthy  or  famous  to  impress  his  fellows 
and  satisfy  his  unconscious  craving  for  whole- 
ness or  normality. 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE        47 

The  individual  thus  succeeds  through  com- 
pensation for  his  weaker  quaHties;  not  merely 
in  spite  of  them,  but  actually  because  of  them. 
They  become  a  goad  that  continually  spurs  him 
on  to  fresh  effort.  They  arouse  his  latent 
courage,  put  him  on  his  mettle,  drive  him  to 
accomplishment. 

Dr.  Alfred  Adler  of  Vienna  has  developed 
this  theory  interestingly  and  convincingly.  Ac- 
cording to  him,  the  neurosis  invariably  arises 
not  from  repression,  but  from  a  feeling  of  or- 
ganic inferiority.  Organs  of  sight,  or  hearing, 
sex-organs,  digestive  apparatus,  all  play  a  part 
in  the  origin  and  development  of  the  neurosis, 
if  they  have  some  inherent  weakness.  The  neu- 
rosis represents  the  attempt  of  the  patient  to 
reach  some  goal  which  he  has  (unconsciously)  in 
mind.  He  observes  himself,  and  comes  to  a  re- 
alization that  he  is  not  up  to  normal  standards 
in  some  (physical)  respect.  And  he  is  driven  by 
this  consciousness  to  become  a  whole  man.  As 
Adler  says,  "The  case  of  the  neurotic  might  be 
represented  by  some  such  formula  as  this,  T  am 
not  a  man'  (i.e.,  a  whole,  normal  man),  'but 
I  will  be  a  man.'  "  In  cases  of  homo-eroticism, 
the  patient  says  to  himself,  "I  have  a  feminine 
figure;  I  have  feminine  desires,  nevertheless  I 
must  become  a  man."  The  neurosis  is  the 
struggle  to  attain  full-fledged  manhood.  The 
patient  sets  up  for  himself  a  "fictitious"  or  un- 
real goal,  toward  which  he  purposes  to  work 


48      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

until  it  is  attained.  This  goal  is  often  ridiculous; 
nevertheless  he  is  driven  to  attain  it.  It  is  often 
futile  enough.  If  he  worked  toward  a  real  goal, 
something  that  would  be  of  social  usefulness,  it 
would  not  be  so  bad,  but  his  goal  is  an  impos- 
sible, vague,  and  useless  thing.  If  attained,  it 
would  benefit  no  one.  Here  we  have  the  reason 
for  the  over-weening  ambition  and  cruel  egotism 
of  the  neurotic.  He  must  attain  his  impossible 
goal  at  all  costs.  "The  whole  (clinical)  picture 
of  the  sexual-neurosis,"  says  Adler,  "is  an  al- 
legory in  which  is  reflected  the  distance  of  the 
patient  from  his  fictitious  masculine  end-motive, 
and  demonstrates  how  he  seeks  to  overcome  this 
distance."  (Ueber  den  Nervosen  Charakter, 
page  5.)  "The  character  traits,  especially  the 
neurotic  ones,  serve  as  psychic  means  and  forms 
of  expression  for  bringing  about  the  guidance  of 
the  life  opinions,  acquiring  a  place,  gaining  a 
fixed  point  in  the  fluctuations  of  existence,  in 
order  to  attain  the  final  goal,  the  feeling  of  su- 
periority." (Ibid  p.  8.)  With  Pfister,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  Adler  attributes  too  much 
significance  to  this  feehng  of  inferiority  and  its 
influence  on  the  neurosis.  It  is  doubtless  a  con- 
tributing cause  of  many  neuroses  and  often  a 
weighty  influence.  His  theories  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  elaborating  rather  than  contradicting 
those  of  Freud,  and  for  the  practical  psycho- 
analyst may  be  utilized  in  conjunction  with 
those  of  Freud.    Neuroses  may  originate  from 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       49 

many  and  varied  causes  of  which  organic  in- 
feriority is  doubtless  one  and  an  important  one, 
but  there  are  many  neuroses  which  do  not  seem 
at  all  to  root  in  such  inferiority.  We  shall  cling 
to  the  idea  that  fixation  and  repression  are  the 
fundamental  cause.  Of  greater  value  for  the 
physician,  I  believe,  are  Adler's  deductions  from 
internal  secretions,  which  play  so  large  a  part  in 
metabolism.  The  study  of  these  and  their  effect 
upon  physical  and  psychic  life  is  still  in  its  in- 
fancy. A  discussion  of  this  matter  of  course 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  medicine  and  therefore 
we  cannot  discuss  it  here. 

Let  us  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the  mechan- 
ism by  which  human  hfe  is  motivated.  How 
does  the  Unconscious  accomplish  the  results  we 
have  noted?  Through  the  complex.  We  have 
previously  seen  how  human  life  is  complex- 
ruled.  The  human  personality  is  an  elusive 
thing,  difficult  to  comprehend,  difficult  to  ap- 
praise in  another,  because  we  have  not  the  same 
complex  as  he.  The  complex  determines  our 
lives  and  our  outlook  upon  life.  Every  man, 
unless  his  philosophical  training  leads  him  to 
take  a  contrary  view,  believes  that  he  sees  life 
as  it  is,  that  he  apprehends  Reality  immediately 
and  completely,  that  he  sees  truth  clear  and 
whole.  He  cannot  be  convinced  of  the  contrary. 
Yet  every  human  being  has  in  reality  his  own 
individual  point  of  view,  he  sees  life  refracted 
through  the  prism  of  his  own  personality,  his 


50      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

own  volitions,  his  own  emotions,  in  a  word  life 
is  colored  by  his  complexes,  therefore  by  the 
Unconscious.  A  certain  emotion  has  been 
aroused  in  his  earliest  childhood  by  a  certain 
act  or  idea,  a  certain  experience,  and  in  this 
other  ideas  and  emotions  become  "constel- 
lated"; this,  with  its  accretions,  forms  a  complex 
which,  unless  it  be  broken  up  by  a  peculiar  train 
of  circumstances,  an  emotional  upheaval,  or 
some  psycho-therapeutic  method,  will  rule  his 
thought  and  his  acts  all  his  life  long. 

We  are  as  much  at  the  mercy  of  these  com- 
plexes as  the  negro  slave  was  at  the  mercy  of 
his  white  master  in  the  South  of  ante-bellum 
days.  Some  writers  consider  the  complex  a 
symptom  of  an  abnormal  psychic  state;  others, 
while  they  admit  it  as  a  factor  in  the  normal  in- 
dividual's psychic  life,  hold  that  it  is  always  suf- 
fused with  unpleasant  emotion.  Wilfrid  Lay,  in 
his  book,  Man's  Unconscious  Conflict,  states 
that  "Complex  is  the  name  given  by  psycho- 
analysis to  an  idea  or  group  of  ideas  with  which 
is  associated  a  tone  of  unpleasant  feeling  which 
keeps  or  tends  to  keep  the  complex  out  of  Con- 
sciousness." (Page  112.)  I  am  not  in  agree- 
ment with  this,  for  the  complex  may  be  associ- 
ated with  pleasant  feeling,  and  unpleasant 
feelings  may  be  aroused  only  when  the  complex 
is  touched  in  a  sensitive  spot.  Thus,  Freud 
speaks  of  a  "profession  complex,"  which  tends 
to  make  men  a  little  jealous  of  colleagues  who 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       $1 

outstrip  them  in  their  profession.  There  is  a 
feeling  of  pride  and  approval  associated  with  the 
"profession  complex"  unless  something  occurs 
to  arouse  resentment.  The  complex-feelings 
may  be  exceedingly  pleasant  but  abnormal ;  they 
may  be  both  pleasant  and  normal.  Dr.  I.  H. 
Coriat  (Abnormal  Psychology,  page  36)  states, 
"All  complexes  are  not  abnormal  .  .  .for  the 
formation  of  normal  complexes  forms  the  basis 
of  all  our  educational  processes.  Habits  and 
highly  skilled  movements  are  complexes  which 
are  the  result  of  frequent  repetition." 

These  complexes,  then,  affect  and  determine 
a  man's  philosophy  of  life,  his  conduct,  and  his 
religious  views.  Our  interest  in  the  complex  for 
the  moment  lies  in  its  influence  upon  the  reli- 
gious life.  The  (Edipus-complex,  which  I  have 
described  at  some  length  in  a  previous  chapter, 
and  which  the  reader  may  study  at  his  leisure 
in  any  of  the  Freudian  literature  (Freud's  In- 
terpretation of  Dreams,  page  222;  Coriat: 
What  is  Psycho-analysis?  page  43;  Adler:  The 
(Edipus  Complex  in  the  Psychoneuroses ;  Lay: 
Man's  Unconscious  Conflict,  pages  18-37),  is 
the  most  common  of  all  complexes  and  must 
bear  the  blame  for  most  of  the  neuroses.  For 
one  reason  or  another,  hatred  and  fear  of  the 
father  are  aroused  in  the  plastic  child-mind. 
This  hatred  becomes  an  obsession,  to  speak  in 
popular  terms,  but  is  repressed  into  the  Uncon- 
scious where  it  is  the  nucleus  of  a  vicious  com- 


52      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

plex.  As  God  is  the  universal  Father  of  man- 
kind, this  hatred  of  the  human  father,  or  of  the 
father-image  as  certain  later  disciples  of  Freud 
prefer  to  term  it,  is  transferred  to  the  Deity,  and 
religious  doubt,  agnosticism,  or  even  atheism  is 
engendered  in  the  sufferer's  mind.  A  deeply- 
religious  man  who  suffered  from  the  CEdipus- 
complex  never  addressed  the  Deity  in  his 
prayers  in  terms  of  fatherhood,  nor  could  he 
bear  to  think  of  God  in  that  capacity.  He  ad- 
dressed Him  as  "Great  spirit,  in  whom  our  lives 
inhere,"  "Creator  of  all  things,"  "Thou  who 
dost  rule  the  universe,"  and  like  expressions. 
Not  until  his  complex  was  broken  up  through 
psycho-analytic  treatment  could  he  bring  him- 
self without  repugnance  to  address  the  Deity 
as  "Our  Heavenly  Father,"  the  term  most  fre- 
quently used  in  prayer  and  most  satisfying  to 
the  majority  of  persons.  His  complex  had  en- 
gendered strong  doubts  as  to  the  existence  of  a 
Deity,  the  universal  Father  of  mankind.  He 
felt  that  some  evil  force  must  rule  the  universe. 
These  doubts  were  happily  resolved  after  the 
power  of  the  complex  was  destroyed. 

A  woman  whose  life  had  been  made  unhappy 
through  the  actions  of  a  dissolute  father,  and 
who  thus  became  the  victim  of  an  inverted 
Qi)dipus-complex,  which  caused  her  to  hate  the 
name  of  her  father  and  recall  him  after  his  death 
only  with  tears  and  anguish,  was  the  victim  of 
the  "border  land  state"  in  which  she  saw  all  the 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE        53 

world  as  a  world  of  shadows.  Her  father  had 
taken  her  as  a  very  young  child  into  a  desolate 
place,  and  there,  in  the  gathering  twilight,  made 
believe  that  he  had  deserted  her,  hence  the  bor- 
der land  state  in  which  she  relived  the  little  trag- 
edy. She  not  only  hated  her  father,  but  the 
whole  world  seemed  unreal,  and  she  not  only 
questioned  its  reality,  but  also  the  goodness  of 
the  God  who  created  such  a  world.  She  doubted 
whether  such  a  God  did  indeed  exist.  She  re- 
iterated again  and  again  the  question,  "If  a 
good  God  rules  the  universe,  why  does  He  allow 
evil  to  exist?  Why  do  the  good  suffer  and  the 
evil  prosper?"  The  tendency  here  was  of  course 
to  give  moral  counsel.  This  was  my  method  of 
dealing  with  such  a  case  before  learning  of  the 
psycho-analytic  procedure.  This  was  of  course 
of  no  avail,  as  she  suffered  from  a  heavy  neu- 
rosis. It  was  pointed  out  to  her  that  the  ques- 
tions she  asked  are  as  old  as  Job  and  are 
aroused  invariably  by  the  same  train  of  cir- 
cumstances: circumstances  that  make  the  vic- 
tim feel  reality  is  too  harsh  to  bear.  From  this 
reality  the  poor  victim  flees  to  the  shelter  of  a 
neurosis.  It  is  as  if  the  psyche  said:  "Here  is 
this  mundane  world ;  all  is  awry  in  it ;  the  good 
suffer  and  the  evil  prosper;  it  must  be  unreal; 
there  can  be  no  good  God  who  has  created  it; 
it  must  be  but  the  figment  of  imagination." 
Hence  the  "border  land  state."  The  individual 
refuses  to  see  the  world  as  real.    Moreover,  he 


54      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

objectifies  and  magnifies  his  own  pain.  What 
his  Unconscious  really  means  by  such  a  diatribe 
is  not  that  he  sees  a  universe  full  of  pain,  but 
that  he  suffers  in  his  own  life.  He  expresses  his 
own  anguish  in  conventional,  altruistic  terms, 
but  he  really  is  referring  to  his  own  anguish;  a 
useful  hint  for  the  religious  counsellor.  But  of 
methods  of  treatment  for  such  cases  we  shall 
speak  later.  Just  now  we  are  interested  in  the 
cause  of  the  condition. 

Most  people  would  consider  that  the  origin  of 
these  doubts  of  the  beneficence  of  the  force  that 
rules  the  universe,  these  eternal  questionings, 
these  despondencies,  is  to  be  found  in  present 
troubles  and  afflictions,  that  the  burden  of  sor- 
row is  too  great  for  the  mind  to  bear.  This  is 
not  at  all  correct.  In  all  my  experience  as  a 
clergyman  —  familiar  with  all  the  emotions 
aroused  by  death  and  separation,  loss  of  friends, 
poverty,  fatal  disease,  and  death  in  its  most 
awful  forms  —  I  have  never  found  a  normal 
person  who  was  driven  to  religious  doubt  by 
present  difficulties  nor  to  despair  and  longing 
for  death.  The  normal  mind  does  not  react  in 
that  way;  it  recognizes  that  these  things  are  a 
part  of  the  natural  order  and  that  we  must  bear 
them  with  equanimity. 

Why,  then,  do  others  despair  and  throw  down 
the  burden  of  life?  The  explanation  is  as  fol- 
lows :  They  are  the  victims  of  some  vicious  com- 
plex.   A  complex  is  deeply  submerged  in  the 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       55 

Unconscious.  If  of  an  unpleasant  nature,  it  is 
the  more  deeply  submerged.  The  unpleasant 
memories  that  gather  about  it  are  not  destroyed; 
they  are  repressed,  submerged,  and  emerge  into 
consciousness,  as  we  have  seen  previously,  only 
as  painful  emotions.  Such  a  complex  depresses 
the  whole  tone  of  life,  it  represses  the  victim's 
energy  and  depresses  him  emotionally.  It 
matters  not  what  his  outward  circumstances 
may  be,  they  may  be  good  or  bad,  happy  or  un- 
happy, he  is  constantly  conscious  of  a  "dull 
ache,"  a  hidden  anguish,  that  colors  all  of  life. 
This  complex  creates  a  great  body  of  "free, 
floating  anxiety."  That  is  to  say,  its  original 
cause  is  forgotten,  but  the  anxiety  remains. 
The  cause  of  this  anxiety  is  not  evident  to 
waking  consciousness,  for  it  is  deeply  sub- 
merged in  the  hidden  recesses  of  the  personality. 
It  makes  its  presence  kno\vn  in  dreams,  phobias 
(which  are  anxiety  states),  reveries  or  senseless 
"worries,"  and  a  general  depression  of  the  per- 
sonality which  may  even  result  in  real  physical, 
functional  disturbance.  To  every  little  pin- 
prick of  fortune,  every  slight  to  the  personality, 
every  affliction  be  it  light  or  heavy,  every  phys- 
ical ailment  be  it  great  or  small,  this  free  float- 
ing anxiety  attaches  itself.  The  real  trouble  may 
depress  the  individual,  but  it  is  never  unbear- 
able ;  add  to  this  the  free  floating  anxiety  of  the 
complex,  the  depression  due  to  his  inner  conflict, 
and  he  has  a  load  greater  than  he  can  bear. 


56      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

To  the  neurotic  every  mole-hill  is  a  mountain ; 
every  friend  may  be  an  enemy  in  disguise,  for  he 
will  bear  some  feature  that  resembles  the  hated 
object  of  the  neurotic's  complex;  every  altru- 
istic motive  is  to  be  questioned.  It  is  as  if  a 
man,  like  the  minister  in  Hawthorne's  tale,  were 
to  assume  a  dark  veil.  Every  little  gray  tinge 
of  life,  viewed  through  this  disfiguring  veil, 
would  become  deepest  black;  every  gray  cloud 
that  covered  the  sun  would  bring  night.  No  sun 
shines,  no  birds  sing,  there  is  no  joy  nor  beauty 
anywhere  for  the  victim  of  such  a  complex. 
Life  is  indeed  not  worth  living,  and  the  unfor- 
tunate longs  for  death.  If  we  search  for  the 
efficient  cause  of  such  a  state,  we  find  it  to  be 
some  infantile  fixation. 

Byron  was  the  victim  of  such  a  neurosis,  due 
doubtless  to  his  club-foot  and  his  hatred  of  his 
mother,  which  seems  to  have  been  more  or  less 
justified.  For  his  physical  disability  he  compen- 
sated in  the  development  of  poetic  craftsman- 
ship ;  for  the  evil  complex  he  sought  to  compen- 
sate in  Don  Juanism.  He  was  constantly,  as  is 
the  way  of  neurotics,  exhibiting  his  broken 
heart  to  the  world  at  large.  As  Matthew  Ar- 
nold unfeelingly  said,  "He  dragged  the  pageant 
of  his  broken  heart  across  half  Europe."  Heine 
concealed  his  wretchedness  (at  the  same  time 
compensating  for  it)  by  bitter  satire,  the  sting 
of  which  is  felt  in  all  his  prose  and  verse.  Some 
authors  have  made  capital  of  their  neuroses. 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       57 

Poe  has  described  anxiety  states  ^'due  to  neu- 
roses" in  his  romantic  tales.  (See  Poe's  Pit 
and  Pendulum,  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  and 
Premature  Burial,  a  vivid  tale  of  claustropho- 
bia.) 

A  neurosis  often  leads  to  an  intense  longing 
for  death,  which  does  not  mean  annihilation  for 
the  neurotic,  since  the  Unconscious  cannot  con- 
ceive of  itself  as  annihilated,  but  a  longing  for 
the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  grave.  (This  longing 
may  even  be  a  disguised  rebirth-wish.  Jung 
states  that  the  interpretation  of  symbols  in 
dream  analysis  depends  upon  the  age  of  the 
dreamer:  if  young,  it  may  be  a  rebirth-wish,  if 
old,  a  death-wish.)  For  the  despondent  neu- 
rotic, all  mental  paths  lead  to  the  one  end: 
death.  One  of  the  most  interesting  illustrations 
of  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  death-wish  is 
found  in  that  ancient  philosophic  poem,  the 
Book  of  Job.  Job  constantly  cries  out  that  he 
longs  for  death.  To  be  sure  he  has  just  cause 
in  that  his  troubles  are  greater  than  he  can  bear, 
but  his  emotions  are  not  to  be  attributed  to  Job, 
but  to  the  neurotic  author  of  the  document.  The 
Prologue  in  heaven,  represents  in  reality  not  a 
dialogue  between  an  anthropomorphic  God  and 
a  personal  Devil,  but  the  conflict  of  a  neurotic 
suffering  from  repression.  The  afflictions  of 
Job  serve  to  bring  out  his  neurotic  conflict,  they 
are  the  instigators.  The  three  friends,  who  give 
him  such  worldly-wise  counsel  are  really  the 


58      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

voices  of  his  own  consciousness,  or  rather  the 
voices  in  the  soul  of  the  author.  "Wherefore," 
cries  Job,  "is  hght  given  to  him  that  is  in  misery, 
and  hfe  to  the  bitter  in  soul:  which  long  for 
death,  but  it  cometh  not;  and  dig  for  it  more 
than  for  hid  treasures;  which  rejoice  exceed- 
ingly and  are  glad  when  they  can  find  the 
grave?"  (3:20—22).  Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  the 
first  of  the  three  false  comforters  is  the  voice  of 
self-reproach,  which  is  the  basis  of  the  "convic- 
tion of  sin."  He  seeks  to  prove  by  citing  an  hal- 
lucination of  his  own  (4:12—21)  how  suffering 
is  invariably  the  result  of  personal  wrong-doing; 
Job  must  have  been  guilty  of  some  mortal  sin, 
else  he  would  not  suffer.  He  is  the  voice  of 
negation.  "Call  now;  is  there  any  that  will 
answer  thee?"  Job,  that  is  the  voice  of  con- 
scious rectitude,  replies  that  he  knows  of  no  such 
wrong-doing.  But  he  is  willing  to  be  shown 
wherein  he  has  erred.  "Cause  me  to  understand 
wherein  I  have  erred."  Bildad  the  Shuhite  now 
reinforces  the  counsel  of  Eliphaz  and  reiterates 
that  "God  will  not  cast  away  the  perfect  man." 
Both  of  these  would  strengthen  Job's  self-re- 
proach and  increase  his  suffering.  But  Job 
makes  the  logical  answer  that  no  one  can  be  ac- 
counted just  in  the  sight  of  God  —  why  does  he 
suffer  more  than  others?  At  any  rate  he  is 
willing  to  rest  his  case  with  God,  although  it 
seems  to  him  that  God  does  not  invariably  re- 
ward well-doing  with  prosperity  and  evil  with 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       59 

misery.  His  better  self,  his  consciousness,  tells 
him  that  he  has  done  no  wrong  more  than  other 
men  who  prosper.  Why  should  he  yield  to  these 
self-reproaches?  He  protests  against  God's 
severity  and  wishes  that  he  had  never  been  born. 
Then  speaks  Zophar  the  Naamathite  and  re- 
proaches Job  for  his  arrogance  and  impiety. 
And  thus  the  dialogue  proceeds;  first  the  voice 
of  self-reproach  telling  Job  that  he  has  sinned; 
then  the  voice  of  his  better  self  which  replies 
that  he  has  not  sinned.  Then  speaks  the  youth- 
ful Elihu,  who  has  heretofore  held  his  peace, 
and  upholds  his  friends'  views.  Then  Jahveh 
himself  speaks  and  reproves  Job's  importunity. 
Before  the  divine  voice,  Job  is  silenced.  He  is 
conscious  of  his  ignorance  of  creation  and  the 
ways  of  God.  Then  he  is  restored  to  health  and 
prosperity.  That  is  to  say,  he  yields,  after  the 
struggle  and  the  upheaval  of  emotions,  to  the 
voice  of  his  better  self,  telling  him  that  all  is 
well.  The  conflict  is  resolved  by  the  abreaction 
or  giving  up  of  painful  emotions.  Job  gives  up 
his  secret  anguish ;  he  has  poured  it  out  with  its 
affect  or  emotional  content,  he  has  transferred 
the  burden  to  God  on  whom  he  has  rested  his 
case.  And  he  is  restored  to  mental  health. 
Without  doing  violence  to  the  poem,  we  may 
state  this  conclusion.  Job  is  a  neurotic  sufferer, 
tossed  this  way  and  that  by  his  internal  con- 
flict; he  is  pulled  now  this  way,  now  that. 
Finally,  he  throws  off  the  painful  emotion  that 


6o      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

is  blasting  his  life,  lays  his  insufferable  burden 
upon  Jahveh,  his  dissociated  personality  is  co- 
ordinated, and  he  is  a  whole  man.  This  is  doubt- 
less the  mechanism  by  which  the  author  of  the 
book,  through  writing  his  doubts  and  expressing 
his  suffering  in  cosmic  terms,  abreacted  his  own 
painful  emotions,  transferred  them  to  the  Deity, 
and  so  found  peace.  The  book  is  an  allegory  of 
the  mental  sufferings  of  every  neurotic  individ- 
ual. It  really  represents  a  sort  of  psycho-an- 
alytic treatment. 

In  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  whose  author 
announces  himself  simply  as  "Koheleth,"  or 
"the  Preacher,"  if  we  eliminate  the  emendations 
of  a  later  hand,  we  have  the  expression  of  a 
neurotic  who  is  not  healed  of  his  mental  dis- 
order. He  is  obviously  suffering  from  a  violent 
repression.  As  is  the  way  with  neurotics,  he 
objectifies  his  neurosis  and  the  consequent  re- 
pression, projects  it  upon  the  Cosmos,  makes  it 
cosmic  rather  than  personal.  He  has  a  feeling 
of  inferiority,  of  incapacity,  that  his  efforts  ac- 
complish nothing  and  his  plaint  is,  "What  is  the 
use  of  striving?  One  arrives  nowhere."  He 
states  the  conclusions  to  which  his  observation 
and  experience  have  brought  him  in  two  sen- 
tences: "All  is  vanity.  What  profit  hath  a  man 
of  all  his  labour  wherein  he  laboureth  under  the 
sun?"  After  considering  all  the  fields  of  human 
activity  and  experiencing  all  life's  varied  pleas- 
ures; after  a  consideration  of  the  seasons  for 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       6l 

every  activity  and  deciding  that  man  cannot  be 
sure  that  he  finds  the  right  season  for  such  ac- 
tivity; he  decides  that  it  is  all  of  no  use.  When 
we  come  to  the  passage  where  he  declares  that 
woman  is  one  of  the  chief  foes  to  human  happi- 
ness —  "whoso  pleaseth  God  shall  escape  from 
her;  but  the  sinner  shall  be  taken  by  her" 
(7:23—29)  — we  begin  to  get  light  on  the  sub- 
ject. He  is  obviously  suffering  from  the  (Edi- 
pus-complex.  When  he  goes  further  and  in- 
culcates prudent  demeanor  towards  kings  and 
others  in  authority  (8:5-8)  we  are  confirmed 
in  our  surmise,  for  we  see  that  in  kings  and  other 
persons  in  authority  he  finds  substitutes  for  the 
father  whom  he  hates  and  fears.  He  is  homo- 
erotic;  he  projects  the  father-image  upon  per- 
sons in  authority;  he  is  a  sufferer  from  the  com- 
mon (Edipus-complex.  Canon  Driver  (Litera- 
ture of  the  Old  Testament)  states  that  the  book 
is  without  religious  enthusiasm.  "He  recounts, 
and  as  he  recounts,  he  generalizes,  the  disap- 
pointments which  had  been  his  own  lot  in  life. 
He  surveys  the  life  of  other  men;  but  he  can 
discover  no  enthusiasm,  no  energy,  no  faculty 
of  grave  and  serious  endeavor."  Was  ever 
clearer  picture  given  of  a  serious  neurosis  that 
colored  all  of  life?  In  succeeding  chapters  we 
shall  review  cases  in  real  life  which  exactly 
parallel  the  incapacity,  the  listlessness,  the  pes- 
simism, the  misogyny,  the  deep  depression  of 
Koheleth. 


62      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

We  have  seen  how  these  two  authors  (Job 
and  Ecclesiastes)  plainly  disclose  their  own 
complexes  in  their  neurotic  questionings  of  life. 
In  Job's  interviews  with  his  friends  is  sufficiently 
demonstrated  the  futility  of  wise  moral  counsel 
in  the  treatment  of  such  disorders. 

Religious  counsels  may  for  a  brief  space  quiet 
the  throbbing  fears  and  raise  the  fallen  hopes  of 
the  neurotic.  But  the  good  is  only  temporary 
when  applied  in  the  wrong  way  and  at  the  wrong 
season.  Religion  may,  and  often  does,  in  its 
proper  and  intelligent  application  relieve  or  even 
cure  such  cases,  but  it  must  be  applied  with  in- 
telligent care  and  full  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  the  psychic  illness.  Pfister  declares  that  in 
his  early  applications  of  the  psycho-analytic 
treatment  he  sometimes  failed  because  he  began 
giving  religious  counsel  too  early.  Hypnosis, 
and  other  methods  of  suggestive  treatment,  as 
a  rule  give  but  temporary  relief  as  they  do  not 
reach  the  seat  of  the  trouble  and  add  but  an- 
other resistance  to  a  disordered  mind  that  al- 
ready suffers  from  too  many.  Far  from  resolv- 
ing the  conflict,  they  oppose  external  conflict  to 
internal  conflict  and  the  last  state  of  that  man 
may  be  worse  than  the  first.  At  most,  sugges- 
tive treatment  gives  but  a  temporary  peace  of 
mind. 

This  chapter  is,  however,  not  specifically  on 
methods  of  cure,  but  is  an  inquiry  into  the  mo- 
tivation of  human  life.    We  have  seen  in  Chap- 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       63 

ter  II  how  the  Unconscious  determines  our  re- 
actions to  external  stimuH,  how  the  complex 
rules  human  life,  and  how  our  whole  philo- 
sophical and  religious  outlook  as  well  as  the  lines 
of  our  every-day  conduct  is  determined  by  op- 
erations of  the  Unconscious.  It  remains  to  see 
how  dreams  indicate  the  complex  and  reveal 
motives. 


The  Dream  as  Indicator  of  Motivation 

The  world  of  dreams  seems  to  be  a  world  of 
strange,  disordered  fancies,  a  region  of  phan- 
tasmagoria, of  fantastic  imagery,  which  gro- 
tesquely imitates  the  world  of  waking  life  but  to 
distort  it  and  confound  the  mind.  Weird  figures, 
neither  human  nor  animal,  perform  unintel- 
ligible acts;  strange  landscapes  meet  the  eye; 
we  ourselves  are  transformed  into  unnatural 
beings  with  supernatural  powers.  We  fly 
hither  and  yon  without  effort;  we  are  indoors, 
out-of-doors  and  know  not  how  we  arrived.  In 
a  twinkling,  "the  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gor- 
geous palaces  .  .  .  dissolve,"  leaving  "not  a 
rack  behind,"  and  we  emerge  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  waking  world,  where  we  slowly 
gather  our  faculties  together  and  become  our 
normal  selves. 

It  is  not  at  all  strange  that  the  primitive  mind 
attributes  the  dream  to  some  supernatural 
agency;  nor  is  it  a  matter  for  surprise  that  the 


64      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

normal  mind  attaches  no  value  to  the  dream  and 
regards  it  merely  as  a  series  of  disjointed  fancies 
without  meaning.  In  these  matter-of-fact  times, 
we  have  learned  to  distrust  him  who  claims  to 
interpret  dreams,  classing  him  with  the  witch- 
doctor and  the  astrologer  who  for  a  considera- 
tion will  cast  your  horoscope  and  foretell  your 
future. 

Nevertheless,  the  dream  is  a  product  of  some 
mental  process;  it  must  have  some  mechanism 
behind  it;  it  must  therefore  in  some  sense  or 
other  have  a  meaning  for  us,  inasmuch  as  it 
indicates  psychic  activity  of  some  nature. 
Many  persons  will  declare  that  the  dream  is 
merely  the  remnant  of  the  day's  psychic  activ- 
ities expressed  in  fragmentary  fashion,  it  is  but 
the  left-over  images  of  the  day's  thinking  un- 
controlled by  waking  intelligence. 

The  dream  is  in  reality  far  more  significant 
than  that.  Freud  has  proved  definitely  that 
every  dream  has  significance  for  the  individual's 
psychic  life.  A  certain  type  of  dream  indicates 
a  certain  state  of  mind.  The  dream  is  a  wish- 
fulfilment,  either  in  literal  or  symbolized  form. 
Children,  in  whom  the  Conscious  is  not  clearly 
differentiated  from  the  Unconscious,  will  dream 
the  literal  fulfilment  of  their  desires.  The  for- 
bidden excursion,  or  the  forbidden  viand,  will 
make  its  appearance  in  childish  dreams.  With 
the  adult,  these  take  on  a  symbolized  form,  so 
highly  symbolized  that  they  are  difficult  or  even 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       65 

impossible  to  interpret.  By  an  elaborate  mech- 
anism, which  involves  displacement,  ambiva- 
lence, and  other  distortions  and  elaborations  of 
the  dream-work,  the  dream  arrives  at  its  goal, 
which  is  the  satisfaction  of  desire. 

A  friend  who  was  forced  to  leave  his  abode 
and  hunt  another  relates  the  following  dream: 
He  found  himself  in  a  large  building,  standing 
on  the  edge  of  a  high  platform,  Some  one  said 
that  the  elevator  would  be  down  soon.  From 
somewhere  up  above  a  small  car  descended, 
shaped  like  a  small  house,  painted  white  and 
suspended  by  a  cable  which  seemed  to  be  com- 
posed of  strands  of  gold.  It  swung  out  some 
distance  from  the  platform  on  which  he  stood. 
He  put  out  one  foot  tentatively  to  step  into  the 
car  but  drew  back  as  the  distance  was  too  great. 
A  stout,  fashionably  dressed  man  appeared, 
pushed  him  aside,  entered  the  car  and  descended, 
leaving  the  dreamer  there  isolated. 

Now  it  happened  that  the  wife  of  the  dreamer 
had  been  house-hunting  on  the  day  previous  to 
the  night  of  the  dream,  and  had  come  home  and 
reported  that  she  had  found  a  small  house, 
painted  white,  in  a  fashionable  section  of  the 
town,  some  distance  away.  My  friend  had 
thought:  "We  cannot  afford  a  house  in  that 
section  with  our  limited  income;  its  upkeep 
would  cost  a  great  deal,  the  rent  would  be  high; 
besides,  it  is  too  far  from  my  place  of  business. 
Some  more  opulent  person  had  better  take  it." 


66      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Note  how  aptly  the  dream  illustrates  this 
frame  of  mind.  The  car  in  the  dream,  in  the 
form  of  a  "little,  white  house,"  is  suspended  by 
a  gold  cable  by  which  it  is  "kept  up."  The  car 
appears  from  above;  the  rent  is  "too  high"  for 
the  man's  means.  The  house  is  difficult  of  ac- 
cess, being  at  some  distance  from  the  center  of 
the  town;  the  car  in  the  dream  is  "hard  to 
reach,"  so  hard  that  the  dreamer  gives  up  the 
attempt,  as  he  would  like  to  give  up  the  house. 
"Some  more  opulent  person  had  better  take  it." 
The  stout  man  appears,  pushes  the  dreamer  aside 
and  steps  into  the  white  car.  He  goes  down, 
which  probably  means  that  the  dreamer  wishes 
the  disagreeable  opulent  person  who  pushes  him 
aside  and  takes  the  house  may  "go  down"  finan- 
cially. 

Many  slurs  have  been  cast  upon  the  Freud- 
ian psychology,  and  its  detractors,  who  for  the 
most  part  have  never  disinterestedly  examined 
it,  declare  that  the  dream-interpretations  are 
fantastic,  absurd,  and  arbitrary,  that  a  highly 
suggestible  neurotic  may  be  led  to  confess  any- 
thing that  the  analyst  suggests,  and  that  the 
symbolism  of  the  dream  is  so  manipulated  and 
distorted  in  the  interpretation  that  the  analyst 
makes  it  mean  whatever  he  will.  To  take  a 
single  instance,  the  statement  that  towers  in 
the  landscapes  of  dreams  are  often  phallic  sym- 
bols has  been  ridiculed.  What,  then,  will  the 
sceptic  do  with  the  following  brief  poem,  "The 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       67 

Maiden's  Dream,"  an  old  Greek  folk-song, 
translated  by  Rose  Kerr,  and  reprinted  in  the 
Literary  Digest,  July  5,  1919: 

"Last  night  there  came  to  me  asleep 
A  breath   from  the  land   of  dreams: 

Within  a  garden  walled  and  deep 
I  saw  two  flowing  streams 

And  a  tower  of  gold  and  ivory, 
Mother,  canst  read  my  dreams?" 

"Thou  art  the  garden,  daughter  mine; 

The  tower  is  thy  grave; 
The  streams  of  water  flowing  free 
Are  the  tears  that  I  shall  shed  for  thee, 

For  love   is  vain   to  save." 

"0  Mother  mine,  nay,  do  not  weep; 

Not  skilled  art  thou  in  dreams. 
Our  dwelling  is  the  garden  deep. 

My  children  the  two  streams, 
And  the  fair  tower  is  the  husband  strong 

In  whose  arms  I  shall  dream  no  dreams." 

Every  person  who  is  familiar  with  Freud's 
Interpretation  of  Dreams  will  recognize  this  as 
a  characteristic  dream  of  a  young  girl  in  love, 
also  the  true  and  characteristic  interpretation 
of  the  dream  given  by  the  young  girl;  he  will 
likewise  see  the  significance  of  the  last  line,  "In 
whose  arms  I  shall  dream  no  dreams." 

We  have  excellent  proof  that  the  dream  oc- 
cupies an  incredibly  short  time.  The  images 
and  events  of  the  dream  follow  one  another  with 
extraordinary  swiftness,  like  the  changing  views 
of  the  cinematograph  when  the  operator  speeds 


68      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

the  machine.  The  dream  may  be  said  to  be  a 
series  of  swift  impressions,  usually  visual,  for 
sounds  are  rarely  heard  in  dreams.  Some 
dreams  have  auditory  impressions,  due  to  some 
external  stimulus.  Thus  I  dreamed  that  the 
telephone  rang,  that  I  rose,  dressed,  break- 
fasted, took  the  train  into  the  city,  went  through 
the  day's  work,  returned,  supped,  and  again 
heard  the  telephone  bell.  At  that  point  I  woke, 
found  that  it  was  morning  and  that  my  alarm 
clock  was  ringing.  I  rose,  stopped  the  alarm, 
and  wound  it.  To  my  surprise,  that  part  of 
the  clock's  mechanism  was  not  perceptibly 
run  down.  This  could  only  mean  that  the 
dream  had  occurred  within  the  barest  fraction 
of  a  minute,  perhaps  but  a  second  or  two.  The 
dream  illustrates  the  incredible  swiftness  of 
changing  impressions  of  which  only  dreams  are 
capable ;  and  the  wish-fulfilment,  for  by  dream- 
ing that  the  day's  duties  were  done,  I  was 
enabled  to  snatch  a  few  moments  more  of  sleep. 
Apparently  consciousness  moves  at  a  swifter 
tempo  in  dreams  than  in  waking  life.  At  first 
glance,  it  seems  that  although  bodily  functions, 
breathing,  the  pulse,  digestion,  and  the  like, 
slow  down  during  sleep,  consciousness  proceeds 
at  a  swifter  pace.  It  is  possible  that  judgment, 
the  necessity  for  ordered  thinking,  inhibits  the 
swift  flow  of  impressions  during  waking  hours 
and  that  these  impressions,  freed  from  such 
inhibiting  influence,  crowd  faster  during  sleep; 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       69 

that  during  sleep  we  no  longer  accommodate  our 
mental  pace  to  the  exigencies  of  ordered  se- 
quence ;  and  that  the  effect  of  longer  duration  in 
the  dream  is  due  to  this  increased  tempo.  It 
seems  far  more  likely,  however,  that  this  swifter 
pace  is  only  apparent,  not  real;  that  during 
waking  life  the  stream  of  impressions  flows  quite 
as  swiftly,  if  left  to  itself,  as  in  the  dream,  and 
that  these  impressions  are  quite  as  inchoate  and 
disjointed,  but  we  thrust  those  aside  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  trend  of  thought  we  are 
at  the  moment  pursuing;  and  that  we  con- 
sciously and  voluntarily  confine  our  attention 
to  certain  impressions  by  a  selective  process 
which  disregards  all  impressions  save  those  that 
bear  upon  that  given  trend  of  thought,  and 
consciously  thrust  aside  those  which  have  naught 
to  do  with  that  particular  sequence.  Never- 
theless, though  they  may  seem  to  have  no 
effect  upon  our  waking  life,  these  disregarded 
impressions  doubtless  do  impinge  upon  the  mar- 
gin of  consciousness,  whence  they  find  their  way 
into  the  Unconscious  to  lie  buried  there  until 
the  proper  stimulus  brings  them  to  light.  When 
for  any  reason  the  censor  which  guards  our 
waking  life  is  off  duty,  these  impressions  come 
thronging  in  a  whirling,  kaleidoscopic  proces- 
sion, they  rise  up  and  possess  us.  In  dreams 
and  delirium,  there  is  nothing  to  inhibit  the 
swift  flow  of  images,  and  an  impression  of  longer 
duration  is  the  immediate  result. 


70      RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

We  say  that  we  "reduce"  our  thoughts  to  an 
ordered  sequence,  and  the  term  "reduce"  seems 
here  more  apt  than  we  know,  since  it  is  mani- 
festly by  reduction  and  selection  that  we  attain 
ordered  thought  and  make  intellectual  effort 
effectual.  Bergson  has  pointed  this  out  in  his 
Time  and  Free  Will.  Barrett  Wendell  states 
that  in  planning  a  piece  of  intellectual  work,  we 
arrive  at  coherence  and  unity  by  such  a  process 
of  elimination. 

Doubtless,  our  time-sense,  instead  of  being 
something  a  priori,  as  Kant  claims,  is  the  result 
of  education  and  experience,  and  time  itself  but 
a  convenience  for  the  ordered  life.  Could  the 
movement  of  consciousness  be  sufficiently 
speeded  up,  we  might  live  a  lifetime  in  a  mo- 
ment. (Drowning  persons  have  this  impres- 
sion.) It  is  thus  that  "fifty  years  of  Europe" 
are  worth  a  "cycle  in  Cathay."  It  is  the  quick- 
ened consciousness  of  highly  civilized  life.  The 
complex  will  invariably  quicken  the  speed  of 
impressions  which  in  any  way  touch  it.  Thus, 
for  the  trained  musician,  there  is  no  perceptible 
lapse  of  time  between  his  reading  of  the  notes, 
noting  key  and  rhythm  meanwhile,  the  trans- 
mission of  this  impression  to  consciousness,  the 
transmission  to  trained  fingers,  and  the  motility 
which  results  in  the  execution  of  the  composi- 
tion.    This  is  due  to  his  habit-complex. 

Reverse  this  quickening  process,  and  as  Berg- 
son states  {Time  and  Free  Will,  page  194  f.), 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       71 

we  might  "take  in  the  whole  path  of  a  heavenly- 
body  in  a  single  perception."  In  one  of  Long- 
fellow's Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,  a  good  monk 
ponders  the  words,  "a  thousand  years  are  but 
as  a  day  in  thy  sight."  He  is  suddenly  trans- 
lated to  the  celestial  world,  where  he  seems  to 
remain  for  but  an  instant;  when  he  returns  to 
earth,  he  finds  that  the  world  has  progressed 
through  a  hundred  years  of  time. 

The  dream  is,  then,  a  manifestation  of  our 
psychic  life  worthy  of  serious  study,  since,  like 
symptomatic  actions  of  every-day,  it  reveals  our 
hidden  motives,  and  reveals  them  even  more 
clearly.  The  hidden  anguish  that  we  success- 
fully repress  during  waking  hours  now  breaks 
forth,  our  inner  life  is  revealed,  and,  when  we 
come  to  analyze  the  dream,  we  find  that  it 
states  in  no  uncertain  terms  what  we  should  like 
to  say  in  waking  life,  were  the  desires  of  the 
Unconscious  not  sharply  repressed.  Could  we 
interpret  all  our  dreams  correctly,  we  should 
know  our  own  innermost  thoughts,  desires,  ap- 
petites, aptitudes,  and  capabilities.  We  should 
then  go  astray  in  our  judgments  far  less  fre- 
quently than  we  do  when  we  disregard  the  point- 
ing finger  of  these  psychic  guide-posts. 

Suppose  we  do  disregard  these  indicators  of 
our  motives,  and  mold  our  lives,  as  so  many  do, 
on  the  judgments  of  others,  choosing  our  careers 
because  some  friend  or  relative  advises  us,  sink- 
ing our  own  personality  in  that  of  some  one 


72      RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

else  —  in  that  case,  we  shall  inevitably  go  astray, 
miss  our  destiny,  awake  to  our  mistake  too  late, 
and  reap  lasting  unhappiness.  Many  a  man 
or  woman  chooses  a  mate  because  of  a  re- 
semblance or  fancied  resemblance  to  some  rela- 
tive. The  individual  who  so  chooses  will  look 
for  qualities  in  the  chosen  mate  similar  to  those 
of  the  beloved  relative  and  be  disappointed  if 
these  qualities  do  not  appear.  A  man  suffering 
from  the  CEdipus-complex  will  choose  for  his 
wife  a  woman  who  resembles  his  mother  and  will 
look  for  maternal  qualities  in  his  wife.  This 
is  of  course  wrong,  and  leads  to  unhappiness. 
If  a  man  marries  a  wife  a  great  deal  older  than 
he,  it  is  almost  invariably  because  he  desires 
a  mother-substitute.  The  secretary  of  an  or- 
ganization which  acts  as  an  employment  bureau 
for  returned  soldiers  and  sailors  tells  me  that 
when  a  man  comes  to  him  and  reports  that  he 
has  made  a  hasty  marriage  that  has  turned  out 
unhappily,  he  always  asks  the  man  if  his  wife 
is  older  than  he.  With  sickening  uniformity, 
these  men  reply  that  such  is  the  case. 

Or  if  a  man  marries  for  money  or  because  of 
friendly  (?)  advice  from  another,  he  will  be 
unhappy.  Fortunately,  the  mandates  of  the  in- 
ner self  in  the  normal  man  are  likely  to  be  too 
strong  to  be  repressed  and,  as  Bergson  says, 
after  all  the  advice  of  friends  has  been  duly 
weighed  and  considered,  the  self  suddenly 
bursts  forth,  breaks  all  fetters,  and  makes  its 


THE     MOTIVATION     OF     HUMAN     LIFE       73 

own  judgments  in  opposition  to  all  the  collec- 
tive wisdom  of  which  it  has  been  the  beneficiary. 
This  course  is  much  more  likely  to  result  in  last- 
ing happiness.  ^ 

1  See    Appendix   for    full   discussion    of   dreams   and   dream 
mechanisms. 


IV.  DETERMINISM  AND  FREE-WILL 

NO  more  bitter  warfare  has  been  waged 
over  any  philosophical  issue  than  that 
waged  over  determinism  versus  free-will.  Mod- 
ern man  likes  to  feel  that  he  can  make  free 
choice  of  action,  that  it  lies  within  himself  to 
choose  his  course  and  determine  his  own  future. 
He  desires  to  feel  that  his  destiny  is  self-deter- 
mined. Primitive  peoples,  on  the  contrary, 
ignorant  of  the  processes  of  natural  law,  observ- 
ant of  natural  phenomena  which  they  are  unable 
to  explicate,  bound  by  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion, feel  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  mysterious 
supernatural  forces,  hence  they  incline  to  be 
fatalistic.  Moderns  of  limited  mental  power,  es- 
pecially if  they  are  badly  environed  and  feel 
unable  to  control  or  rise  above  their  environ- 
ment, echo  the  fatalism  of  the  primitive.  A  feel- 
ing of  "What  is  the  use  of  effort,  since  every- 
thing is  predetermined?"  pervades  primitive 
thought.  "It  lies  on  the  knees  of  the  gods,"  said 
the  ancients.  "Kismet!"  says  the  Arab,  "all  is 
ordered,  let  us  bow  to  the  will  of  Allah."  The 
Arabs  have  an  expression,  which  we  may  trans- 
literate "mecktoub,"  which  means  that  a  thing 
is  so  ordered  by  higher  powers  than  we  and 

74 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  7$ 

cannot  be  changed  by  human  effort.  Since  it 
plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  determination  of  a 
man's  life-course,  this  burning  question  of 
whether  all  is  pre-determined  by  forces  outside 
ourselves  or  whether  it  is  determined  by  our 
own  volitions  has  been  the  paramount  interest 
of  religious  and  philosophic  thought  from  re- 
motest antiquity  down  to  the  present. 

Archdeacon  Paley  claimed  to  make  out  a  good 
case  for  determinism  when  he  declared  that  the 
Almighty  had  created  the  universe  according 
to  a  well-conceived  plan,  designed  and  made  it 
in  the  beginning,  as  the  watch-maker  designs 
and  makes  the  watch;  that  He  set  its  many 
wheels  in  motion  and  they  have  run  ever  since 
according  to  the  primal  plan.  Leibnitz  stood 
out  for  the  pre-determined  harmony  of  the  uni- 
verse.    These  views  still  find  wide  acceptance. 

These  easy  solutions  of  the  problem  miss  the 
practical  side  of  the  matter  (they  are,  in  reality, 
matters  of  dialectic  rather  than  of  human  ac- 
tion) since  they  fail  to  show  that  man  must  at 
all  events  act  as  if  he  were  free,  since  other- 
wise the  world  would  cease  to  progress  and  lapse 
back  into  chaos.  A  good  deal  of  the  philosophic 
pronouncement  on  the  subject  is  pure  dialectic, 
the  product  of  the  study,  not  the  garnered  ex- 
perience of  real  life  and  actual  contact.  Berg- 
son,  in  his  Creative  Evolution,  shows  how  our 
view  of  the  world  as  designed  order  or  chaotic 
discord,  is   a  matter  of  intellectual   concept. 


76      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

From  observation,  we  gain  certain  intellectual 
concepts  of  the  universe.  These  concepts  we 
analyze  and  classify.  What  we  classify  is  not 
objective  reality,  but  a  subjective  thing,  these 
self-evolved  intellectual  concepts.  We  create 
categories,  analyze  our  concepts  of  the  universe 
under  these  categories,  then  proceed  to  synthe- 
size what  we  have  already  created  and  analyzed. 
As  an  intellectual  exercise  this  may  be  good,  but 
we  must  recognize  it  for  what  it  is.  From  this 
point  of  view,  there  is  no  evidence  of  conscious 
design  in  natural  processes,  says  Bergson,  but 
there  is  evidence  of  a  life-force,  an  elan  vital, 
which  pushes  out  in  all  directions.  Thwarted 
in  certain  directions  by  insuperable  obstacles, 
it  pushes  through  those  channels  which  are  left 
open  to  it,  and  thus  types  are  created  and  evolu- 
tion proceeds. 

William  James  {Varieties,  page  438,  note) 
states:  "When  one  views  the  world  with  no  defi- 
nite theological  bias  one  way  or  the  other,  one 
sees  that  order  and  disorder,  as  we  now  recog- 
nize them,  are  purely  human  inventions.  We 
are  interested  in  certain  types  of  arrangement, 
useful,  aesthetic,  or  moral  —  so  interested  that 
whenever  we  find  them  realized,  the  fact  em- 
phatically rivets  our  attention.  The  result  is 
that  we  work  over  the  contents  of  the  world 
selectively.  .  .  .  Our  dealings  with  Nature 
are  just  like  this.  .  .  .  We  count  and  name 
whatever  lies  upon  the  special  lines  we  trace, 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  77 

whilst  the  other  things  and  the  untraced  Hnes 
are  neither  named  nor  counted." 

The  devout  mind  may  be  repelled  by  such 
ratiocination,  for  to  question  that  the  universe 
is  controlled  through  pre-determined  design  may 
smack  to  some  of  atheism,  it  may  seem  to  ques- 
tion God's  over-ruling  providence.  But  is  this 
necessarily  so?  May  it  not  be  possible  that  the 
Almighty  works  not  by  means  of  fundamental 
plans  but  through  evolutionary  methods,  or  that 
a  fundamental  plan  is  being  worked  out  through 
evolutionary  methods?  If  philosophy  fails  to 
find  evidence  of  First  Cause,  that  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply  that  we  are  ruled  by  blind  force. 
The  Creator  may  work  by  other  methods  and 
through  other  means. 

It  is  evident  that  we  suffer  from  over-intel- 
lectualization.  We  are  perhaps  too  sophisti- 
cated; we  are  over-anxious  to  find  a  causal 
thread  running  through  all  things;  we  divide, 
classify,  analyze,  and  synthesize  arbitrarily  for 
our  own  self-satisfaction,  in  order  that  life  may 
seem  to  be  a  nicely-rounded  whole;  we  seek 
to  smooth  life  up  like  a  well-made  bed,  we  en- 
close its  phenomena  in  a  well-rounded  covering 
like  the  crust  of  the  apple-dumpling  and  then, 
like  a  certain  English  king,  we  express  wonder 
as  to  how  the  apples  got  inside!  Through  a 
singular  blindness,  we  refuse  to  accept  Hfe's 
discontinuities  or  think  of  it  as  fragmentary. 

Listen  to  the  popular  lecturer  who  addresses 


78      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

an  audience  on  some  historical  movement;  note 
how  he  treats  of  this  phase  and  that  phase,  this 
character  and  that,  then,  finally,  draws  his 
threads  together,  establishes  definite  relation- 
ships and  makes  false  continuities  where  none 
really  exist.  By  such  false  dialectics  we  may 
relate  anything  in  the  universe  to  anything  else, 
past,  present,  or  to  come,  and  we  often  do.  The 
truth  is,  the  mind  loves  ordered  sequence,  con- 
tinuity of  thought,  must  have  it  in  fact,  though 
the  sequence  be  false,  for  it  is  through  this 
ordered  sequence,  this  continuity,  this  classifi- 
cation, this  analysis  and  synthesis,  this  cate- 
gorizing, that  we  build  our  intellectual  struc- 
tures. We  seek  unity  and  design  and  we  insist 
upon  having  them  at  any  cost.  We  formulate 
a  theory  (and  the  Freudians  are  by  no  means 
free  from  this  fault)  then  we  refer  all  the  events 
and  phenomena  of  life  to  that  theory;  it  be- 
comes a  Procrustian  bed  which  all  things  must 
fit.  What  we  have  to  learn  is  that  this  unity 
and  design  are  modes  of  thought,  not  objective 
realities,  and  that  they  depend  wholly  upon  a 
point  of  view.  Were  we  to  realize  this,  we 
should  spare  ourselves  much  pains  and  futile 
struggle  trying  to  reconcile  irreconcilable  differ- 
ences perceived  in  the  external  world,  also  much 
useless  argument,  pro  and  contra. 

If  we  accepted  this  view  of  all  life  as  ordered 
sequence,  we  should  be  driven  to  extreme  de- 
terminism.    Recognized  as  a  matter  of  dialec- 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  79 

tic,  we  may  discard  this  view  and  regard  free- 
will as  operative  in  human  life.  The  unbiased 
mind,  for  instance,  can  see  no  causal  thread 
running  through  history  in  the  sense  in  which 
Hegel  saw  it,  with  his  artificial  thesis,  antithesis, 
and  synthesis.  In  view  of  the  late  war,  we 
can  scarcely  claim  that  the  human  race  moves 
forward  according  to  the  primal  plan  of  some 
celestial  being,  nor  again  as  if  pushed  forward 
by  some  blind  force.  What  we  witness  is  the 
race  moving  onward  through  a  series  of  cyclic 
changes  in  which  it  takes  on  something  new 
here  and  there,  experiments,  selects,  rejects,  and 
progresses  by  a  determinism  which  is  the  re- 
sult of  experience  and  is  therefore  self-determi- 
nation. We  may  say,  then,  that  there  is  a  sort 
of  determinism  in  human  life,  there  is  a  series  of 
events  which  the  superficial  observer  might 
judge  to  spring  from  primal  design,  but  which  is 
really  the  result  of  racial  experimentation,  the 
attempt  at  self-determination. 

Let  us  bring  the  matter  down  to  concrete 
cases  and  the  acts  of  everyday  life  and  see  just 
how  our  lives  are  determined.  As  we  have  seen 
in  the  chapter  on  the  "Motivation  of  Human 
Life,"  no  human  action,  choice,  or  judgment 
is  from  caprice.  It  is  determined  by  the  action 
of  the  Unconscious  when  it  is  not  consciously 
willed.  Even  in  that  case,  the  Unconscious 
plays  a  large  part  in  the  choice  or  judgment. 
Take  the  matter  of  forgetting,  for  instance. 


80      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

It  always  has  a  motive.  Who  has  not  had  the 
experience  of  forgetting  a  proper  name?  This 
is  due,  says  Coriat,  to  a  dissociation  which  leads 
to  the  forgetting  of  the  name  because  it  has 
painful  associations.  There  is  thus  an  uncon- 
scious but  purposeful  motive  in  the  forgetting. 
He  cites  the  case  of  an  individual  {Abnormal 
Psychology,  Second  Edition,  p.  23)  who  could 
not  recall  the  name  of  the  Swiss  neurologist 
Veraguth  for  some  hours.  By  the  free-associa- 
tion method  (that  is,  obtaining  from  the  sub- 
ject all  the  free  associations  with  the  word)  the 
following  sequence  was  obtained:  "Veraguth  — 
Verabad-Bad  (the  German  for  bath)  —  Bath  — 
water  —  mineral  water."  The  story  came  out 
that  the  previous  summer  "the  subject  was  sud- 
denly taken  ill  while  in  Switzerland  with  a  dis- 
order which  required  the  use  of  a  certain  mineral 
water  and  thus  was  unable  to  travel  as  had  been 
planned.  The  association  of  the  disagreeable 
experience  in  Switzerland  was  the  inhibiting 
force  which  prevented  the  recall  of  the  name." 

These  little  errors  of  everyday  life  are  de- 
termined by  complexes  which  inhere  in  the  Un- 
conscious and  determine  our  course  of  action. 
In  this  category  come  the  forgetting  of  names, 
mistakes  in  speech  (see  the  story  of  Roosevelt 
related  in  the  Appendix,  page  238),  mis- 
takes in  reading,  as  when  we  see  a  familiar 
word  in  place  of  the  unfamiliar  one  really 
printed,  mistakes  in  writing  (as  when  a  cotton- 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  8l 

planter  attributed  his  mental  troubles  to  worry 
over  the  outcome  of  his  crop  and  said  his  trouble 
was  due  to  a  "frigid  wife,"  whereas  he  meant 
to  write  a  "frigid  wave,"  the  former  term  being 
the  correct  one),  ^  forgetting  of  impressions  and 
resolutions  (such  as  to  write  a  letter  to  a  person 
whom  one  dislikes,  or  to  post  it  when  written, 
or  to  enclose  a  check  in  a  letter),  erroneously 
carried-out  actions  as  the  well-known  tendency 
of  a  lover  who,  on  his  way  to  business  in  an 
abstracted  state,  will  go  a  long  distance  out  of 
his  way  to  pass  his  beloved's  house. 

The  so-called  "Deja  vu,"  or  feeling  of  hav- 
ing seen  a  certain  place  or  person  or  having  been 
in  an  actual  situation  before  one  really  has  been 
there,  is  due  to  a  similar  mechanism  of  the  Un- 
conscious. It  is  like  Pfister's  formula,  "Now 
the  situation  is  as  it  was  before  when  such  and 
such  a  thing  happened."  Thus  a  nurse,  upon 
coming  into  a  hospital  for  the  first  time,  felt 
that  she  had  been  there  before.  It  turned  out 
upon  examination  that  this  feeling  was  due  to 
a  train  of  circumstances  which  had  occurred  in 
another  hospital  and  she  was  reminded  of  these 
upon  coming  into  the  unfamiliar  one.  The  new 
experience  stirs  an  unconscious  memory,  hence 
the  "Deja  vu."  Freud,  in  his  Psychology  of 
Everyday  Life,  page  320  ff.,  has  explained  the 
"Deja  vu"  at  great  length. 

Our  choice  of  rehgious  beliefs  is  similarly  de- 

^  Freud:  Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life,  page  129. 


82      RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

termined.  We  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  "Mys- 
ticism," how  men  have  been  driven  into  the  se- 
clusion of  monasteries  by  severe  neuroses  and 
there  have  had  certain  experiences  that  we  call 
mystic.  Unconscious  motives  have  driven  men 
from  one  sect  to  another,  in  accordance  with  the 
repressed  desires  of  the  Unconscious.  Pfister 
{Psychoanalytic  Method,  page  326  f.)  speaks 
of  the  desires  of  neurotics  to  take  refuge  in 
strange  and  bizarre  forms  of  religion,  a  symp- 
tom of  unhealthy-mindedness.  (We  shall  see 
more  of  this  in  the  chapter  on  ''The  Occult  in 
Modern  Religious  Systems.")  When  the  neu- 
rosis is  cured,  the  subject  will  give  up  the  bizarre 
system  and  return  to  normal. 

In  our  discussion  of  this  subject,  we  must 
take  account  of  the  fact  that  something  of  our 
remotest  ancestors  survives  in  each  one  of  us; 
in  both  the  group-life  and  the  individual,  the 
antiquity  of  the  race  is  preserved  in  the  Un- 
conscious. Those  impulses  and  desires  which 
were  conscious  in  our  savage  forbears  and  are 
still  conscious  in  young  children,  are  submerged 
in  the  Unconscious  in  adult  life,  whence  they 
reach  out  to  influence  our  lives.  This,  while 
it  may  seem  to  be  a  sort  of  determinism,  is  in 
the  strictest  sense  a  kind  of  freedom  of  will; 
it  signifies  that  the  race  by  a  definite  choice  of 
certain  courses  of  action  from  time  to  time  defi- 
nitely determines  what  sort  of  race  it  shall  be; 
this  is  self-determination,  therefore  it  is  racial 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  83 

free-will.  It  is  not,  then,  a  matter  of  dialectic 
or  speculation,  but  of  direct  human  experience, 
immediate  human  contacts. 

When  we  consider  how  a  percept-sequence 
results  in  motility,  or,  in  plain  words,  how 
thought  and  feeling  result  finally  in  action,  we 
see  that  every  individual  life  is  to  a  great  degree 
self-determined.  With  the  motivation  that  pro- 
ceeds from  his  own  Unconscious  in  which  in- 
heres much  material  bequeathed  him  by  his 
primitive  forbears,  each  individual  sets  out  to 
erect  the  structure  of  his  life  and  follow  his  own 
destiny.  Were  there  no  Unconscious  to  pre- 
serve memories  and  act  as  a  repository  of  per- 
cepts until  these  percepts  can  result  in  motility, 
man's  life  would  be  a  discontinuity,  for  each 
new  state  of  consciousness  would  be  sharply  set 
off  and  differentiated  from  every  preceding 
state ;  in  that  case,  man  would  not  be  a  person- 
ality, he  would  be  a  succession  of  discontinu- 
ous, independent  states  of  consciousness,  without 
memory;  and  having  no  accumulated  experi- 
ence upon  which  to  draw,  he  could  make  no 
progress.  In  that  sense,  his  life  may  be  said 
to  be  predetermined.  But  it  is  pure  sophistry 
to  call  this  "determinism."  He  still  has  the 
right  of  free  choice.  If  we  grow  at  all,  it  must 
be  because  of  our  reactions  upon  collective  ex- 
periences and  collective  memories.  How  should 
we  grow  otherwise?  And  we  grow  even  in  our 
unconscious  states.  James  stated  that  "we  learn 
to  swim  in  winter  and  to  skate  in  summer." 


84      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Freud  has  made  it  clear  in  the  final  chap- 
ters of  his  Interpretation  of  Dreams,  how  the 
"most  complex  mental  operations  are  possible 
without  the  co-operation  of  consciousness."  He 
declares  that  "unconscious  wishes  always  re- 
main active.  .  .  .  They  represent  paths  which 
are  passable  whenever  a  sum  of  excitement 
makes  use  of  them."  He  demonstrates  by  the 
use  of  diagrams  the  mechanism  by  which  a 
series  of  percepts  finally  results  in  motility.  It 
is  a  complex  mechanism  and  the  process  itself 
is  complicated,  but  the  gist  of  the  matter  is  that 
percepts  are  acted  upon  by  certain  memory 
systems  of  the  psychic  apparatus,  these  memo- 
ries in  turn  modify  the  percepts  in  the  Un- 
conscious, finally,  the  modified  percepts  emerge 
through  the  Foreconscious,  which  lies  "between 
the  realm  of  the  Unconscious  and  that  of  con- 
sciousness and  which  contains  the  material  of 
recent  experience"  (Coriat)  —  and  finally  these 
transformed  percepts  enter  the  Conscious  as 
ideas  and  issue  in  action.  This  is  an  incuba- 
tion process  which  may  take  a  long  time ;  it  may 
be  years;  hence,  our  decisions  may  be  deter- 
mined by  complexes  which  had  their  beginning 
in  earliest  childhood. 

All  our  ideas  are,  as  we  have  previously  seen, 
tinged  with  the  Unconscious.  Every  human 
act  is  determined  by  the  action  of  the  Uncon- 
scious upon  percepts.  Every  object  of  the  ex- 
ternal world,  every  thought  brought  to  us  from 


DETERMINISM     AND     FREE-WILL  8$ 

other  minds,  thus  becomes  assimilated  and  col- 
ored by  our  own  personality.  Thus  we  form 
what  James  terms  the  "value  judgment."  We 
evaluate  and  decide  upon  the  utility  of  the  ob- 
ject or  the  thought  in  the  development  of  our 
own  lives.  We  are  like  the  good  housewife 
who  looks  over  a  pile  of  garments  and  places 
certain  of  them  in  one  pile  for  the  rag-man, 
others  in  a  pile  to  be  mended  and  worn  again. 
Thus,  in  a  sense  we  make  free  choice  of  action, 
in  a  sense  our  actions  are  pre-determined,  since 
they  take  on  the  color  of  the  collective  memories 
of  the  Unconscious  and  the  Foreconscious. 

And  thus  no  human  act,  however  capricious 
it  may  seem,  is  without  definite  cause.  We  are 
incapable  of  caprice,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word.  We  weigh  values,  though  we  may  do 
it  unconsciously,  and  we  decide  to  seize  upon 
that  object,  carry  out  that  purpose,  pursue  that 
course  of  action,  which  will  best  serve  our  ends. 

The  neurotic,  victim  of  obsessions,  phobias, 
compulsive  thinking  and  action,  cannot  conceive 
of  the  world  as  being  ordered  otherwise  than 
by  some  malign  force  or  evil  genius.  He  is 
not  the  master  of  his  forces.  His  phobias  force 
him  to  avoid  certain  places  and  certain  persons. 
His  malign  complexes  tend  to  color  more  and 
more  the  objects,  the  places,  the  people,  and  all 
the  life  about  him,  until  his  whole  existence 
becomes  darkened  and  he  is  incapable  of  volun- 
tary thought  or  action.    Acts  which  are  per- 


86      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

fectly  easy  for  normal  persons  and  which  his 
friends  know  he  can  perfectly  well  perform,  are 
made  impossible  by  these  evil  complexes.  If 
he  keeps  moving  in  this  direction,  his  whole  ex- 
istence will  become  determined  thus,  he  will 
become  incapable  of  any  action,  and  will  be- 
come an  introverted  or  shut-in  personaHty. 
Fortunately,  most  neuroses  are  not  severe 
enough  to  result  in  such  a  catastrophe  and 
modern  psycho-therapeutics  can  break  them  up 
before  they  reach  this  final  stage.  (The  Apos- 
tle Paul  expresses  his  own  aboulia  in  the  words, 
"For  the  good  that  I  would  I  do  not;  but  the 
evil  I  would  not,  that  I  do.")  Thus  may  be 
explained  the  apparent  contrariety  of  neurotics. 
They  do  not  do  the  simple,  social  thing,  because 
they  feel  that  they  cannot.  They  must  first 
be  freed  from  the  evil  spell  that  binds  them. 

The  idle  turning  from  one  task  to  another  as 
a  relief  from  ennui,  the  feeling  of  "never-get- 
done,"  which  obsesses  some  persons,  may  be 
regarded  as  such  neurotic  symptoms.  The  neu- 
rotic life  is  pre-determined  by  the  sinister  forces 
that  rule  that  life;  but  the  life  of  the  individual 
freed  from  neurotic  obsessions  is  indeed  a  life 
of  free  will  and  free  choice. 


V.    MYSTICISM   AND   NEUROTIC 
STATES 

FROM  time  to  time  in  the  world's  history 
there  have  appeared  persons  who,  in  some 
chamber  hidden  away  from  the  world,  the  clois- 
tered peace  of  some  monastery,  or  some  lonely 
mountain  cavern,  have  had  an  immediate  aware- 
ness of  the  presence  of  God.  They  have  had 
this  experience  not  through  some  logical  process 
or  intellectual  method,  though  they  have  gone 
through  a  course  of  what  might  be  termed  spir- 
itual calisthenics,  but  through  an  emotional  up- 
heaval. They  have  left  the  world  behind  to 
follow  after  righteousness,  and  the  mystic  ex- 
perience, so-called,  is  their  reward.  Those  who 
have  had  such  an  experience  have  been  called 
"mystics."  We  shall  determine  from  the  wit- 
ness of  their  own  lips  just  what  the  conditions 
of  this  experience  are;  What  the  real  content 
is,  may  well  be  left  for  the  philosopher  and  the 
theologian.  We  are  concerned  with  the  mech- 
anism which  produces  the  mystic  experience. 
One  word  will  express  the  condition  of  having 
such  an  experience;  it  is  the  word  "repression." 
As  we  have  seen,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
normal  person  ever  seeks  voluntarily  to  escape 

87 


88      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

from  reality  and  take  refuge  in  a  cloistered  se- 
clusion or  a  fanciful  world  created  by  his  imagi- 
nation. He  may  seek  to  change  an  uncongenial 
environment  for  one  better  suited  to  his  nature 
and  his  needs;  he  may  go  apart  from  the  world 
for  a  space  to  meditate  upon  some  truth  which 
occupies  his  mind,  to  co-ordinate  his  faculties 
and  get  a  perspective  upon  life,  to  perform  some 
piece  of  work,  as  the  writing  of  a  book  or  the 
invention  of  scientific  apparatus,  but  his  interest 
in  the  main  will  be  in  the  great  populous  world 
of  men,  his  temporary  absence  from  that  world 
will  be  for  social  ends,  and  he  will  return  to  it 
with  gladness  when  his  work  is  finished,  even 
as  a  traveller  returns  from  some  distant  shore  — 
happy  to  be  once  more  at  home  and  among 
friends.  So  deep  is  the  human  need  of  friends 
and  social  contacts,  that  the  normal  man  will 
give  up  life  rather  than  face  solitary  confine- 
ment. The  feeling  that  he  is  one  with  the  group- 
life  strengthens  his  arm  and  enables  him  to  per- 
form heroic  deeds  of  which  by  himself  he  is  in- 
capable; his  social  contacts  develop  him  and 
enrich  his  life.  The  deepest  grief  will  therefore 
not  suffice  to  drive  the  normal  person  from  the 
world,  nor  the  keenest  disappointment  shut  him 
up  within  the  phantasmal  world  of  a  diseased 
fancy. 

There  must,  then,  be  some  neurotic  taint  as 
a  condition  of  mysticism;  some  abnormal  trait 
that  drives  the  individual  from  the  world.    He 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES        89 

has  suffered  the  "slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune,"  but  we  must  add  to  these  a  definite 
proclivity  for  the  solitary  life.  His  afflictions 
are  not  the  efficient  cause  of  his  flight  into  se- 
clusion, they  are  but  the  instigating  cause.  He 
suffers  from  repression. 

Now  it  by  no  means  follows  that  such  reli- 
gious experiences  are  the  result  of  perverted 
sexuality,  though  there  may  be  abnormal  sex 
features  present.  James  states  with  good 
reason  {Varieties,  page  ii,  note)  that  religion 
cannot  be  adequately  interpreted  as  perverted 
sexuality.  There  is  implication  here  that  some 
one  has  advanced  the  theory  that  religion  is 
based  on  sex-perversion.  This  theory,  he  says, 
'^snuffs  out  Saint  Theresa  as  an  hysteric.  Saint 
Francis  of  Assisi  as  an  hereditary  degenerate." 
It  may  be  that  some  one  has  stated  that  religion 
is  sex  perversion ;  but  it  is  certainly  no  one  of  the 
Freudian  school.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be 
noted  that  Freud  uses  the  term  "sex"  in  a  much 
wider  sense  than  is  usual.  It  by  no  means  im- 
pHes  "sensual"  to  say  "sexual."  But  it  is  true 
that  all  our  psychic  life  is  in  the  broadest  sense 
based  on  sex;  our  whole  attitude  toward  life,  our 
philosophy,  our  religious  views  are,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  dependent  in  the  last  analysis  upon 
sex.  The  man  will  not  see  the  world  with  the 
same  eyes  as  the  woman,  nor  the  child  with  the 
same  eyes  as  the  adult;  there  are  profound 
psychic  differences  in  their  natures,  due  to  char- 


90      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

acteristics  which  we  may  well  call  "secondary 
sex  characteristics."  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no 
one  would  attempt  to  interpret  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  religious  life  as  instances  of  sex-perver- 
sion, nor  would  any  modern  psychologist  at- 
tribute Carlyle's  "organ-tones  of  misery"  (I 
quote  once  more  from  James)  to  a  "gastro- 
duodenal  catarrh."  Such  argument  is  puerile 
and  biased  in  the  extreme ;  it  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  the  man  who  argues  thus  is  himself 
the  victim  of  obsession.  Nevertheless,  religious 
types  cannot  be  understood  without  reference  to 
sex. 

Whereas  no  one  in  our  day  is  inclined  to  at- 
tribute genius,  religious,  literary,  or  artistic,  to 
degeneracy,  we  have  explored  the  deeper  re- 
cesses of  human  personality  in  a  way  and  to  an 
extent  never  before  accomplished ;  we  are  there- 
fore safe  in  saying,  in  the  light  of  such  expe- 
rience, that  many  religious  phenomena  are 
directly  attributable  to  neuroses,  and  that 
repressed  sex-instinct  does  play  a  prominent 
role  in  certain  types  of  religious  phenomena. 
Carlyle's  "duodenal  catarrh"  may  not  suffice  to 
explain  his  genius,  but  it  does  explain  his  pessi- 
mistic outlook  on  life,  it  gives  his  ideas  color  and 
very  somber  color  at  that.  The  genius  of  Poe 
is  not  attributable  to  the  fact  that  he  was  neu- 
rotic; but  his  neurosis  colors  all  his  output. 
Tschaikowsky  would  doubtless  have  been  as 
great  a  composer  had  his  psychic  life  been  nor- 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES        QI 

mal,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  would  have 
written  the  Symphonie  Pathetique.  So  it  must 
be  with  our  inquiries  in  the  religious  field;  we 
can  interpret  religious  types  and  religious  phe- 
nomena only  through  a  correct  interpretation 
and  comprehension  of  their  psychic  background. 
Therefore,  while  the  neurotic  taint  may  not  suf- 
fice to  explain  the  entire  content  of  religious 
experience,  a  neurosis  will  frequently  be  found 
to  give  direction  to  religious  thought  and  de- 
termine the  mode  of  religious  life. 

It  must  be  suspected  in  the  case  of  every  in- 
dividual who  has  been  driven  to  the  cloisters  by 
the  afflictions  and  difficulties  that  beset  this  life. 
From  a  thorough  examination  of  mysticism  and 
the  lives  of  mystics,  I  am  convinced  that  none  is 
free  from  neurotic  taint. 

The  mystic,  the  ascetic,  the  religious  recluse, 
is  driven  by  his  neurosis  forth  from  the  haunts 
of  men,  to  live  in  his  cell  in  some  remote  cloister, 
or  his  cave  on  some  lonely  mountain-side.  The 
family  history  of  the  saint  often  reveals  the  na- 
ture of  the  neurosis.  The  CEdipus-complex  may 
be  cited  in  the  case  of  many  saints  as  the  cause 
of  their  withdrawal  from  useful  social  life,  to 
live  the  life  of  meditation  and  prayer  and  com- 
mune alone  with  the  Deity.  Other  complexes 
have  been  quite  as  active  in  determining  the 
nature  of  the  individual's  religious  life,  and  have 
sent  him  away  from  social  contacts  to  the  life 
of  the  recluse. 


92      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

We  have  defined  the  mystic  state  as  a  state  of 
immediate  awareness  of  God.  The  mystic  goes 
into  seclusion,  he  meditates,  fasts,  and  prays; 
finally,  he  arrives  at  a  state  of  complete  pas- 
sivity and  receptivity,  earth's  harsh  noises  are  all 
shut  away,  even  voluntary  thought  is  finally 
shut  out,  and  into  the  receptive  soul  (in  the 
language  of  mysticism)  God  pours  his  ineffable 
love,  the  whole  being  is  illumined  as  though  by 
a  divine  light,  and  the  mystic  is  caught  up  into 
the  heavens  where  he  swoons  in  rapturous  bliss 
at  the  very  throne  of  God.  The  imagery  is  at 
times  exceedingly  anthropomorphic;  the  mystic 
is  caught  up  in  divine  arms,  as  a  child  is  caught 
up  by  its  mother,  and  laid  in  blisful  repose  upon 
the  bosom  of  God  Himself. 

Hear  the  evidence  of  Jan  Ruysbroek,  a  Do- 
minican mystic  who  takes  his  name  from  the 
small  village  on  the  Seine  in  which  he  was  born 
about  1290: 

Then  first,  when  we  withdrew  into  the  simplicitas  of  our 
heart,  do  we  behold  the  immeasurable  glory  of  God,  and  our 
intellect  is  as  clear  from  all  consideration  of  distinction  and 
figurative  apprehensions,  as  though  we  had  never  seen  or  heard 
of  such  things.  Then  the  riches  of  God  are  open  to  us.  Our 
spirit  becomes  desireless,  as  though  there  were  nothing  on  earth 
or  in  heaven  of  which  we  stood  in  need.  Then  we  are  alone  with 
God,  God  and  we  —  nothing  else.  Then  we  rise  above  all  mul- 
tiplicity and  distinction  into  the  simple  nakedness  of  our  essence, 
and  in  it  become  conscious  of  the  infinite  wisdom  of  the  Divine 
Essence,  whose  inexhaustible  depths  are  as  a  vast  waste,  into 
which  no  corporeal  and  no  spiritual  image  can  intrude.  .  .  . 
Lost  in  the  abyss  of  our  eternal  blessedness,  we  perceive  no  dis- 
tinction between  ourselves  and  God. 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES        93 

Let  US  turn  to  the  Swabian  mystic,  Henry 
Suso,  another  of  the  Dominicans,  who  belongs  to 
the  same  period: 

I  looked  and  behold  the  body  about  my  heart  was  clear  as 
crystal,  and  I  saw  the  Eternal  Wisdom  calmly  sitting  in  my 
heart  in  lovely  wise:  and,  close  by  that  form  of  beauty,  my 
soul,  leaning  on  God,  embraced  by  His  arms,  pressed  to  His 
heart,  full  of  heavenly  longing,  transported,  intoxicated  with 
love. 

The  Eternal  Wisdom  speaks,  and  these  are  her 
words: 

I  am  the  throne  of  joy,  I  am  the  crown  of  bliss.  Mine  eyes 
are  so  bright,  my  mouth  so  tender,  my  cheeks  so  rosy-red,  and 
all  my  form  so  winning  fair,  that  were  a  man  to  abide  in  a 
glowing  furnace  till  the  Last  Day,  it  would  be  a  little  price  for 
a  moment's  vision  of  my  beauty. 

We  need  quote  no  further.  The  utterances  of 
other  mystics,  Tauler,  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna, 
St.  Theresa,  parallel  these  sayings  with  even 
more  erotic  imagery  and  extravagance  of 
language. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  note  the  analogies 
between  the  visions  of  mysticism  and  the  hallu- 
cinations of  the  neurotic.  In  the  first  place,  the 
condition  of  the  mystic  experience  is  seclusion 
from  the  world,  the  abstracted  state.  The  re- 
tirement of  the  mystic  is  in  some  respects  sim- 
ilar to  the  "shut-in"  personality  that  is  sympto- 
matic of  a  severe  neurosis. 

In  the  second  place,  the  character  of  the  vi- 
sions of  the  mystic  is  strikingly  similar  to  certain 


94      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

neurotic  and  hysterical  symptoms.  We  must 
feel  that  the  mystic  experience  is  definitely  hys- 
terical in  origin.  Compare  with  the  rhapsodic 
utterances  of  the  mystics,  this  utterance  of  a 
woman  who  suffered  from  an  anxiety-hysteria. 
*' Suddenly,  as  I  reclined  in  an  easy  chair  by  the 
window,  looking  out  toward  the  setting  sun,  the 
very  heavens  opened;  I  could  see  the  golden 
towers  of  the  Eternal  City,  steps  appeared  and 
angels  ascended  and  descended  with  palm 
branches  in  their  hands."  (Compare  Jacob's 
dream.  Genesis  28,  which  the  subject  had  read.) 
"There  was  a  blinding  light  and  God  Himself 
came  forth  out  of  the  pearly  gates  and  a  bright 
ray  of  light  entered  my  heart.  My  whole  being 
was  transfixed  and  transfused  with  Divine  Love. 
I  thrilled  from  head  to  foot,  I  could  not  move." 

This  woman  had  suffered  from  repression  of 
the  normal  sex  instinct.  Repressed  in  her  natu- 
ral instincts,  she  was  subject  to  these  hysterical 
outbursts  but  ceased  to  have  them  when  the  hys- 
teria which  caused  them  was  cured.  Seclusion 
and  repression  are  the  conditions  of  the  mystic 
experience. 

We  might  compare  the  mystic  experience  to 
the  effective  abreaction  of  emotion  in  the  psycho- 
analytic treatment.  The  individual  is  in  a  state 
of  quiescence,  receptivity.  As  the  patient  is 
placed  in  a  reclining  position  in  a  semi-darkened 
room  and  told  to  relax,  in  order  that  in  an  ab- 
stracted state,  he  may  view  his  own  psychic  proc- 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES       95 

esses,  so  the  mystic  "withdraws  into  the  sim- 
plicitas  of  the  heart." 

Then,  when  he  is  in  this  abstracted,  receptive 
condition,  all  the  memories,  the  imagery,  the 
experience,  the  anguish  of  his  inward  conflict, 
which  have  been  stored  up  in  the  Unconscious 
and  violently  repressed,  issue  forth  with  such 
strength  that  he  is  overwhelmed  and  speechless. 
His  visions  are  colored  by  his  thought  and  pre- 
vious reading,  as  the  dream  is  colored  by  the 
experiences  of  the  previous  day.  We  cannot 
quite  say  that  these  celestial  visions  are  the  "de- 
lusions of  grandeur"  of  the  paranoiac,  but  they 
have  at  least  a  similar  mechanism  back  of  them: 
they  are  hallucinations  due  to  the  long  repres- 
sion of  sex-instinct  of  the  ascetic,  the  nature  of 
the  mystic's  preparatory  fasting,  meditation, 
and  mode  of  thought,  and  to  the  receptive  ab- 
stracted condition  in  which  he  places  himself. 

"Our  spirit  becomes  desireless,  as  though  there 
were  nothing  on  earth  or  in  heaven  of  which 
we  stood  in  need,"  says  Ruysbroek.  Certainly, 
for  desire  is  gratified  in  the  erotically-motivated 
heavenly  vision,  even  as  desire  is  gratified  in 
highly  symboHzed  dreams.  "Lost  in  the  abyss 
of  our  eternal  blessedness,  we  perceive  no  dis- 
tinction between  ourselves  and  God."  In  other 
words,  the  sea  of  the  Unconscious,  so  much 
vaster  in  extent  than  the  field  of  waking  con- 
sciousness, rises  up  and  engulfs  the  devotee. 
This  abyss  of  which  all  mystics  speak,  "an  abyss 


96      RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

of  undifferentiated  being,"  in  which  all  their 
being  seems  submerged,  can  be  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  just  this  sea  of  the  Unconscious;  they 
have  the  feeling  of  being  engulfed  in  it  because 
all  definite,  directed  thought  is  erased  from  the 
mind  for  the  time,  and  consciousness  seems  to 
spread  and  diffuse  itself  through  the  universe. 
Patients  going  under  the  influence  of  an  anaes- 
thetic have  a  similar  feeling.  With  the  mystic, 
of  course,  there  is  the  strong  influence  of  auto- 
suggestion to  strengthen  the  impression,  and 
affective  thought  to  give  it  definite  direction. 

That  there  is  strong  erotic  feeling,  not  always 
sublimated  or  refined,  beneath  the  symbolism  of 
the  mystic  is  evident  from  the  rhapsodies  of  St. 
Theresa,  St.  Catherine,  and  the  quotation  from 
Suso  which  I  have  cited  above. 

The  desire-element  with  its  fulfilment  is  so 
strongly  evidenced  in  all  recorded  mystic  ex- 
periences as  to  need  no  comment  and  no  further 
proof.  The  mystic  desires  above  all  things  to 
see  God,  to  experience  God,  to  be  one  with  Him, 
and  this  very  desire,  working  with  tremendous 
potency  upon  unconscious  elements  in  his  per- 
sonality, brings  at  length  the  fulfilment  he  seeks. 
We  have  here  a  cumulative  effect,  a  constant 
accretion,  a  cumulative  surging  up  of  desire 
within  the  Unconscious,  accompanied  by  strong 
repression  of  the  Conscious,  until  at  length  the 
welling  flood  bursts  all  bonds  and  breaks  forth 
with  violence  in  an  hysterical  outburst. 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES       97 

Let  US  consider  the  life  of  the  mystic  a  little 
more  specifically.  The  mediaeval  monk,  desirous 
of  becoming  one  with  God,  deliberately  cut  him- 
self off  from  his  fellows  to  live  a  definitely  aso- 
cial life.  It  was  a  rude  world  in  which  he  lived; 
fighting  was  a  man's  work  in  that  world  and 
the  sensitive  soul  found  little  peace  except  in 
the  monastery.  So  the  monk  retires  to  his  clois- 
ter ;  he  fasts,  reducing  his  food  to  the  very  mini- 
mum that  will  sustain  life ;  he  rises  from  his  rude 
bed  at  all  hours  to  pray  upon  the  cold  flag- 
stones of  his  cell;  he  flagellates  himself  until 
he  faints  from  loss  of  blood;  he  wears  a  hair- 
shirt  or  even  iron  spikes  beneath  his  habit;  he 
undergoes  all  sorts  of  penance  for  sins  real  and 
imaginary.  He  thinks  by  this  means  to  destroy 
all  natural  instinct,  which  is  of  the  devil.  But 
these  instincts  are  not  destroyed,  they  lead  an 
unconscious  autonomous  life.  This  creates  the 
ideal  condition  for  the  hysterical  outburst.  It 
inevitably  comes;  the  floods  dammed  up  for  a 
long  period  break  forth  with  violence.  What 
wonder  that  the  mystic  feels  an  unwonted  free- 
dom, an  infinite  happiness  after  this  powerful 
affective  abreaction,  or  that  the  feeling  of  exul- 
tation is  succeeded  by  a  feeling  of  perfect  re- 
laxation, perfect  peace. 

The  mystic  may  feel  that  he  has  good  reason 
violently  to  repress  all  desire  and  memory  of 
his  former  life.  He  may  have  been  like  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  a  worldling  immersed  in  the 


qS    religion   and   the    new   psychology 

vanities  of  the  world;  or  like  St.  Augustine,  a 
rake  whose  life  had  been  dissolute.  In  that  case, 
repression  will  be  all  the  stronger;  he  will  seek 
to  forget  his  evil  life;  his  penance  will  be  re- 
doubled, for  there  will  be  the  element  of  remorse 
to  contend  with ;  and  the  uprushing  flood  of  emo- 
tion will  be  all  the  stronger.  We  may  say  that 
there  has  been  in  his  life  a  dissociation,  his  life 
has  been  divided  against  itself.  But  with  the  up- 
welling  floods  of  emotion  the  dissociated  ele- 
ments become  one  with  conscious  elements, 
the  dissociated  personality  is  once  more 
whole,  and  the  mystic  feels  the  sensation  of 
mental  and  moral  soundness.  The  uprush  of 
emotion  has  acted  as  a  mental  catharsis,  the 
mystic  is  once  more  in  tune  with  God  and  the 
universe. 

Given  the  right  conditions,  it  is  likely  that 
any  one  could  have  the  "mystic  experience." 
There  needs  but  the  long-continued  repression, 
the  raising  of  powerful  resistances,  the  conflict 
with  its  gathering  strength,  and  there  will  in- 
evitably come  the  outburst  of  pent-up  emotion. 
The  form  this  outburst  will  take  depends,  as  we 
have  seen,  upon  individual  predilection. 

Whether  the  mystic  actually  comes  into  con- 
tact with  something  Divine,  I  am  not  prepared 
to  say.  This  is  outside  the  field  of  psychology 
and  we  are  here  concerned  with  the  mechanism, 
not  the  content  of  the  mystic  experience.  A  full 
discussion  of  this  phase  of  the  subject  would  take 


MYSTICISM     AND     NEUROTIC     STATES       99 

US  far  afield  into  the  realms  of  philosophy  upon 
its  most  metaphysical  side  as  well  as  theology 
upon  its  rationalistic  side;  it  would  involve  dis- 
cussion of  the  nature  of  the  Divine  as  evidenced 
in  things  external  to  ourselves.  Psychology 
may  deal  with  the  Divine  in  the  human  as  evi- 
denced in  human  behavior;  but  there  its  in- 
quiries must  stop. 


VI.     THE    PROBLEM    OF    EVIL 

AT  the  beginning  of  our  first  chapter  we 
stated  that  one  of  the  burning  questions 
of  human  life  is  "Why  does  evil  exist  in  a 
universe  which,  we  suppose,  is  divinely  ordered?" 
From  Job  to  Omar  Khayyam  the  bitter  cry  has 
gone  up,  "Why  is  evil  existent,  why  does  a  good 
God  allow  evil  to  crush  out  the  very  soul  of 
man?"  And  the  response  of  the  human  soul  is 
as  varied  as  human  temperament.  It  ranges 
from  the  meek  acquiescence  of  Job,  who  cries 
out  in  the  midst  of  his  sore  affliction,  "All  the 
days  of  my  appointed  time  will  I  wait  until  my 
release  come,"  to  the  proudly  cynical  and  bitter 
taunt  of  Omar, 

Thou    wilt   not   with    Predestined    Evil    round 
Enmesh  and  then  impute  my  fall  to  sin. 

A  good  deal  of  this  anxious  questioning  arises 
from  confusion  in  the  popular  mind  as  to  the 
nature  of  evil.  There  are  two  kinds  of  evil:  cos- 
mic evil,  which  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the 
operation  of  natural  and  immutable  law  which 
man  has  either  advertently  or  inadvertently  vio- 
lated ;  and  the  personal  evil  operative  in  human 
life,  which  has  its  origin  in  human  impulse  and 


lOO 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  lOI 

human  conduct,  the  cure  of  which  is  to  be  sought 
and  found  in  man  himself.  Much  of  cosmic  evil 
is  doubtless  due  to  the  evolution  of  the  universe. 
The  scientist  tells  us  that  volcanic  action  and 
earthquakes,  which  have  so  devastated  the 
world,  are  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  land- 
life;  that  were  volcanic  action  to  cease,  the 
surging  oceans  would  soon  eat  away  the  land. 
A  world  in  which  volcanic  action  has  ceased 
is  a  dead  world. 

However,  cosmic  evil  (if  the  term  be  not  a 
misnomer)  need  not  concern  us  here  as  it  is  not 
under  our  control.  What  concerns  us  is  the  evil 
manifested  in  human  life  and  human  relations. 
Much  of  this  is  due  to  the  Unconscious,  which, 
being  a  repository  of  individual  and  racial  mem- 
ories, emotional  in  its  nature,  and  capable  of  but 
one  emotion,  desire,  is  therefore  non-moral.  It 
is  not  consciously  immoral ;  it  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  ethical  at  all.  It  is  a  giant  whose 
one  feeling  is  appetite;  it  is  a  savage,  incapable 
of  appreciation  of  the  difference  between  good 
and  evil. 

We  saw  in  our  first  chapter  how  primitive  re- 
ligion lacks  the  ethical  note,  and  how  a  definite 
moral  code  is  the  product  of  racial  experience 
acting  over  a  long  period.  Retaining  as  we  do 
the  primitive  emotional  element  in  the  Uncon- 
scious, we  are  at  times  defeated  in  our  conflict 
with  this  Titan,  elemental  impulses  get  the  bet- 
ter of  us,  and  some  harm  to  a  fellow  man  is 


102    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

wrought.  The  efforts  of  this  chained  giant  to 
emerge  from  his  lair  and  overwhelm  judgment 
and  logic  are  sometimes  attended  with  success. 
A  tremendous  struggle  ensues  when  he  tugs  at 
his  bonds,  and  if  we  go  down  before  him,  his  vol- 
canic outburst  will  wreck  everything  that  comes 
in  his  way.  This  we  call  evil,  and  it  is  for  the 
most  part,  unconsciously  motivated.  The  Un- 
conscious blazes  a  path  to  a  given  end  and  recks 
little  of  what  may  stand  in  its  way. 

It  is,  on  the  whole,  likely  that  we  exaggerate 
the  power  of  evil  to  harm.  We  have  seen  that  no 
extraneous  evil  in  human  life  is  too  grievous  to 
bear  if  the  individual  be  armed  with  the  defen- 
sive weapons  of  the  normal  person;  that  it  is 
only  as  the  personality  is  weakened  by  some  neu- 
rotic inner  conflict  that  the  individual  is  so 
weakened  as  to  be  unfit  to  bear  the  troubles  that 
afflict  him  in  the  ordinary  course  of  human 
events. 

The  evils  hardest  to  bear  are  those  self- 
created,  the  bugaboos  of  the  Unconscious.  They 
are  Protean  in  form  and  give  rise  to  a  variety  of 
nameless  fears:  fear  of  disease,  which  we  call 
h3^ochondria;  fear  of  death  with  an  ambivalent 
longing  for  it;  fear  of  incapacity  for  a  task  of 
which  the  individual  is  entirely  capable ;  fear  of 
insanity;  fear  of  moral  disintegration.  Under 
this  head  come  all  the  phobias:  claustrophobia, 
a  fear  of  closed  places;  agoraphobia,  fear  of 
open  spaces,  and  a  thousand  others.     These 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  IO3 

make  the  patient  miserable,  his  Hfe  a  burden, 
and  not  the  least  of  his  troubles  is  the  unsym- 
pathetic attitude  of  healthy  acquaintances  who 
strive  to  laugh  him  out  of  his  fears  and  thereby 
aggravate  them. 

It  is  probable  that  the  greatest  evil  of  human 
life  is  fear,  that  potent  destroyer  of  human  hap- 
piness. To-day  we  know  the  genesis  of  most  of 
these  fears.  Phobias  and  anxiety-states  are  due 
to  unconscious  repression  of  the  natural  in- 
stincts, inhibition  of  the  normal  functional  ac- 
tivity of  the  psyche.  And  we  have  definite  proof 
that  a  repression  of  normal  emotion  through 
some  vicious  complex,  a  stopping  of  the  natural 
outlet  of  human  feeling,  metamorphoses  the  re- 
pressed emotion  into  a  feeling  of  fear  and 
anxiety.  John  uttered  a  profound  truth  when  he 
said,  "Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear." 

Let  us  not  strive  to  minimize  these  evils  be- 
cause they  seem  to  have  so  slight  a  basis. 
Grasset  {The  Semi-Insane  and  the  Semi-Respon- 
sible) says,  "In  such  cases  fear  is  paralyzing  and 
agonizing.  Instead  of  being  the  starting-point 
of  wise  measures  of  defence,  the  unconscious 
reactions  to  this  fear  are  inhibitive  and  frantic. 
This  fear  makes  the  subject  perspire,  presses  on 
his  chest,  makes  his  limbs  shake  or  give  way,  or 
if  it  makes  him  fly  from  danger,  he  will  fly  fool- 
ishly and  in  the  wrong  direction.  It  is  in  this 
respect  that  such  fear  is  distinctly  diseased." 
(Page  106.)    "Doubtless,"  he  continues,  "these 


104  RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

fears  were  defence  reactions  in  the  long  ago,  but 
they  have  long  outlived  their  usefulness." 

For  the  neurotic  who  is  obsessed  by  these  pho- 
bias, life  is  a  waking  nightmare;  every  turn  in 
the  path  is  beset  with  foes;  if  he  walk  abroad, 
an  enemy  lurks  behind  every  corner;  if  he  remain 
at  home  dark  shadows  and  forebodings  oppress 
him,  his  life  is  a  burden  to  himself  and  to  others. 
He  is  sure  to  feel  that  he  is  persecuted; 
passers-by  give  him  dark  looks;  voices  utter  vile 
epithets:  he  will  exhibit  many  if  not  all  of  the 
symptoms  of  a  definite  psychosis  and  yet  be  but 
the  victim  of  an  anxiety-hysteria.  Small  wonder 
that  those  so  obsessed  question  God's  providence 
and  contend  in  season  and  out  that  whatever  or 
whoever  rules  the  universe,  it  must  be  some  evil 
force.  Pfister  tells  of  a  young  dentist,  who  was 
so  obsessed  by  these  fears  and  hallucinations 
that  he  no  longer  went  abroad.  And  of  course,  al- 
though the  neurotic  is  not  aware  of  it,  the  enemy 
is  to  be  looked  for  not  without,  but  within. 

Dostoievsky,  the  Russian  novelist,  seems  to 
have  been  aware  of  the  subjective  nature  of 
these  mysterious  fears.  "There  was  a  frightful 
fear  of  something  which  I  cannot  define,  of  some- 
thing which  I  cannot  conceive,  which  does  not 
exist,  but  which  rises  before  me  as  a  horrible, 
distorted,  inexorable,  and  irrefutable  fact." 

Moussorgsky,  the  gifted  Russian  composer  of 
"Boris  Goudounov,"  has  given  in  his  study  of 
the  obsessed  Czar,  Boris,  a  picture  of  the  haunt- 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  105 

ing  fears  of  his  own  life.  Boris  has  instigated 
the  murder  of  the  Czarevitch,  Dmitri,  and  the 
shade  of  the  murdered  lad  haunts  him  in  his  last 
years.  He  essays  peace  of  mind  in  religion,  but 
it  is  of  no  avail.  Everywhere  he  is  pursued  by 
this  phantom,  and  his  agonized  cry,  "Fa,  va, 
fanciulf"  rings  out  through  the  barbaric  strains 
of  Moussorgsky's  music  until  at  length  he  drops 
dead  in  an  hysterical  fit.  While  the  composer 
pictures  the  fear  of  Boris  as  due  to  an  objective 
cause,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  opera  is  a  page 
of  his  own  autobiography.  It  is  probably  more 
than  coincidence  that  the  first  dramatic  music 
Moussorgsky  composed  was  a  chorus  from  the 
play  of  CEdipus,  which  had  just  been  translated 
into  Russian. 

An  educator,  X,  was  obsessed  by  feelings 
of  nameless  fear  during  the  day,  and  hysterical 
symptoms  at  night.  If  he  happened  to  be  in  a 
train  that  was  going  through  a  tunnel,  he  suf- 
fered from  claustrophobia;  if  the  train  had  a 
sudden  access  of  speed,  he  feared  it  would  be 
wrecked;  in  either  case,  he  felt  that  the  train 
would  never  reach  the  terminal.  If  he  had  to 
remain  for  any  length  of  time  in  a  wide  public 
square  he  felt  that  some  unknown  enemy  might 
creep  upon  him  from  behind  (agoraphobia) ;  he 
went  constantly  in  fear  of  fainting  and  sudden 
death.  When  he  rose  to  address  an  audience, 
he  felt  as  though  he  were  about  to  lose  his  voice 
or  drop  fainting  on  the  platform.    At  night,  he 


I06  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

was  wakened  from  a  sleep  apparently  sound  and 
dreamless  by  palpitation  of  the  heart,  and  a 
dyspnoea,  with  an  intense  feeling  of  suffocation. 
His  work  became  daily  more  difficult  of  execu- 
tion; life  was  a  burden,  even  while  he  feared 
death.  He  lost  faith  in  God  and  his  aboulia 
made  the  ordinary  acts  of  every-day  life  increas- 
ingly difficult. 

It  was  found  that  he  was  suffering  from  an 
anxiety-hysteria,  due  to  an  infantile  fixation, 
added  to  which  was  a  faulty  sex-education  that 
induced  intense  repression  of  instinct  during 
adolescent  years.  It  is  true,  he  had  had  a  real 
physical  disturbance;  some  ten  years  previous 
to  the  onset  of  these  attacks,  he  had  suffered 
from  a  functional  heart  disorder.  This  had  been 
completely  cured,  but  the  free  floating  anxiety 
aroused  by  his  vicious  complex  and  bad  educa- 
tion had  attached  itself  to  this  later  functional 
disorder,  so  that  to  his  other  fears  was  added 
that  of  his  heart's  failing  at  any  moment.  An 
unwise  physician  had  increased  the  severity  of 
the  anxiety  attacks  by  telling  him  that  he  might 
drop  dead  in  one  of  them!  He  was  entirely 
cured  of  this  morbid  condition,  but  the  discussion 
of  the  method  of  cure  belongs  to  another 
chapter. 

Authorities  are  agreed  that  these  victims  are 
deserving  of  even  more  of  our  sympathy  than  the 
physically  diseased;  for  the  latter  have  at  least 
a  fund  of  mental  and  moral  strength  upon  which 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  IO7 

to  draw,  while  the  former  are  robbed  even  of 
this  support. 

Formerly,  the  neurotic  was  looked  upon  as  a 
hopeless  hypochondriac  who  had  no  real  ail- 
ment, or  as  the  unlucky  victim  of  incurable 
mental  disease  due  to  hereditary  taint,  according 
as  the  observer  was  an  ignorant  and  materialistic 
layman,  or  a  wise  and  sympathetic  alienist.  To- 
day we  are  discovering  how  closely  the  neuroses 
may  imitate  the  psychoses,  and  we  find  that 
even  certain  of  the  latter  will  yield  to  psycho- 
analytic treatment. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  vicious  theology  and 
ill-advised  religious  training  are  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  many  of  these  disturbances.  The 
threat  is  used  as  a  weapon.  The  child  is  threat- 
ened from  its  earliest  years  that  unless  it  does 
thus  and  so  and  refrains  from  doing  this  and 
that,  it  is  in  danger  of  divine  punishment.  "God 
wants  you  to  do  so  and  so ;  God  will  punish  you 
if  you  do  so  and  so,"  says  the  unwise  mother. 
This  is  to  inculcate  the  law  of  fear  —  primitive 
and  savage  —  instead  of  the  law  of  love,  and 
can  have  nothing  but  a  pernicious  influence  upon 
the  child's  sensitive  plastic  nature.  He  comes 
to  believe  that  whatever  is  natural  is  sinful.  We 
forget  that  normally  the  child  is  not  governed 
by  the  same  standards  that  rule  adult  life.  For 
instance,  following  the  lead  of  prehistoric  an- 
cestors, he  is  a  predatory  animal,  unconscious 
of  ifieum  and  timm.    Unconcernedly  he  appro- 


I08   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

priates  the  property  of  another.  He  is  not  con- 
scious of  sin.  But  he  is  at  once  made  to  feel 
that  his  sin  is  almost  unpardonable.  We  ought 
to  remember  that  the  child  does  not  inherently 
have  a  high  sense  of  honor;  he  must  learn  this 
through  long  experience  and  training;  but  we 
attribute  to  him  the  same  high  standards  of 
honor  that  we  ourselves  have  after  a  lifetime  of 
training.  The  child  does  not  stop  to  think  be- 
fore it  acts  —  like  its  primitive  ancestors  it  acts 
on  impulse,  not  after  mature  thought  and  reflec- 
tion on  consequences,  but  from  the  urge  of  im- 
mediate desire.  We  are  short-sighted  when  we 
pounce  upon  it  and  make  it  believe  that  there 
is  no  punishment  too  severe  for  the  crime  it  has 
committed.  Many  a  time  one  sees  a  child  weep 
bitterly  when  thus  wantonly  and  cruelly  at- 
tacked by  an  elder  who  should  have  known 
better.  The  child  may  be  gently  led  to  act  from 
higher  motives;  he  cannot  be  driven.  To  drive 
the  child  is  to  harden  his  nature,  kill  his  spon- 
taneity, make  him  a  small  prig,  a  little  hypo- 
crite, who  acts  not  from  inner  springs  but  be- 
cause some  older  person  has  imposed  his  own 
standards  upon  him,  has  forced  the  idea  upon 
him  that  he  must  act  thus  and  so  without  fur- 
nishing reasons.  The  child  is  made  a  hypocrite 
because,  from  his  viewpoint,  this  is  not  the 
proper  spring  of  action,  it  is  forced  upon  him 
from  without,  and  worst  of  all  a  conflict  ensues 
between  his  own  developing  nature  and  the 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  109 

impossible  ideals  forced  upon  him.  This  is  the 
frequent  beginning  of  a  neurosis  which  will  fol- 
low him  all  his  life  long. 

Again,  our  lack  of  proper  sex  education  gives 
rise  to  many  mental  and  nervous  troubles.  The 
sex  education  of  the  child  is,  as  a  rule,  utterly 
neglected  by  parent  and  teacher.  The  growing 
child  knows  nothing  of  sex  except  as  his  inquir- 
ing mind  reaches  out  for  any  bit  of  information 
that  may  surreptitiously  be  had.  Sex  matters 
are  surrounded  by  an  alluring  mystery;  they 
"are  not  nice,"  and  this  is  sufficient  to  attract 
his  eager  mind,  anxious  to  know  everything  in 
the  world  about  him.  Information  is  forth- 
coming in  the  form  of  obscene  stories  and  expres- 
sions that  he  hears  from  children  a  little  older 
than  himself.  When  the  storms  incident  to  the 
beginning  of  adolescence  suddenly  assail  him, 
they  find  him  totally  unprepared  for  the  on- 
slaught. Tremendous  changes  suddenly  begin 
to  take  place  in  his  physical  and  mental  being; 
new  emotions  sweep  over  him.  His  world  tot- 
ters and  crashes  about  him;  his  ideals,  the  false 
and  prudish  ideals  inculcated  by  unwise  teachers, 
crash  down  in  ruin,  as  he  finds  that  the  very 
things  which  had  been  presented  to  his  youthful 
mind  as  unclean  are  the  basic  things  of  human 
life.  He  discovers  that  his  own  parents  have 
been  guilty  of  the  act  which  all  his  teaching  has 
led  him  to  believe  an  unspeakable  and  carnal  sin. 
He  is  completely  at  sea,  and  only  the  long  years 


110   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

that  follow  will  re-educate  him,  give  him  a  true 
perspective  of  his  sex-life  and  sex-life  in  general. 
But  meanwhile?  Meanwhile  the  seeds  of  a  neu- 
rosis are  sown  in  fertile  soil;  it  is  likely  as  not, 
more  likely  than  not,  that  he  will  suffer  from 
some  sex-perversion  or  from  sexual  anaesthesia, 
for  his  early  training  has  repressed  his  normal 
sexual  feeling.  His  whole  life  may  be  embittered 
and  his  mind  obsessed  by  the  nameless  fears  that 
grow  out  of  such  repression. 

In  the  third  place,  materialistic  physicians, 
who  hold  that  the  entire  practice  of  medicine 
consists  in  the  diagnosis  of  physical  ills  and 
medication,  are  to  blame  for  many  of  the  mental 
and  nervous  ills  from  which  mankind  suffers. 
The  physician  of  the  old  school  had  no  sym- 
pathy for  the  nervous  sufferer.  He  hated  to  see 
the  hypochrondriac  approaching,  for  he  knew 
that  he  would  hear  a  long  recital  of  what  he 
termed  imaginary  ills,  that  is,  ills  which  are  not 
of  a  physical  nature  and  are  not  at  all  what  the 
patient  thinks  they  are.  With  such  a  patient,  he 
would  take  one  of  two  courses.  He  would  either 
argue  with  him,  reiterating  over  and  over  the 
statement  that  there  was  nothing  wrong  with 
him,  thereby  setting  up  resistances  in  the  mind 
of  one  already  suffering  from  too  many;  or  else, 
without  argument,  he  would  administer  some 
drug,  perhaps  strychnia,  which  is  always  a  safe 
guess  in  nervous  cases,  since  it  gives  a  patient  a 
sense  of  well-being  temporarily,  because  it  has  a 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  III 

stimulating  effect  upon  the  nervous  system;  or, 
thirdly,  he  might  give  him  a  bolus  of  pills  com- 
posed solely  of  sugar  of  milk.  The  patient 
would  get  no  better,  hence  he  would  finally  leave 
the  doctor  with  feelings  of  mental  anguish  mixed 
with  hatred  for  the  well-meaning  but  ignorant 
physician.  Perhaps  he  would  try  physician  after 
physician,  spend  all  his  substance,  but  gain  no 
relief.  Such  a  patient  knows  that  he  suffers 
from  a  real  affliction,  whatever  the  diagnostician 
may  say.  He  suffers  from  all  sorts  of  obsessions 
and  anxieties;  he  cannot  sleep,  or  his  sleep  is 
broken  and  rendered  hideous  by  nightmares  and 
sudden  wakings  with  terrifying  symptoms  which 
he  thinks  predict  his  doom.  Sometimes  the 
patient  is  suffering  from  some  physical  ill  in 
addition  to  his  neurosis  or  hysteria.  Then  an 
ignorant  and  cruel  physician  has  been  known  to 
terrify  him  by  telling  him  that  he  may  drop  dead 
at  any  moment,  or  that  unless  he  does  thus  and 
so,  he  is  condemned  to  a  life  of  confirmed  and 
hopeless  invalidism.  An  eminent  physician  diag- 
nosed a  case  as  aneurism  of  the  thoracic  aorta. 
He  told  the  patient  immediately  to  go  home,  go 
to  bed ;  that  though  it  was  exceedingly  doubtful, 
his  life  might  thus  be  saved.  Imagine  the  state 
of  mind  of  this  patient !  He  died  soon  after,  his 
end  probably  hastened  by  fright  as  well  as  his 
serious  ailment.  There  was  also  the  case  of  the 
educator,  X,  whom  I  have  already  mentioned, 
whom  an  eminent  diagnostician  told  that  he 


112    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

might  fall  dead  in  one  of  his  hysterical  attacks, 
thereby  increasing  the  intensity  and  frequency 
of  the  attacks.  An  intelligent  man  of  forty 
rushed,  white  and  breathless,  into  the  office  of  a 
friend  of  mine.  Two  physicians  had  just  told 
him,  independently  of  each  other,  that  he  had 
a  blood-pressure  of  200!  Here  was  just  cause 
for  alarm.  My  friend  took  his  blood-pressure, 
which  was  143,  that  is,  normal.  The  patient 
was  still  in  doubt,  so  my  friend  sent  for  a  col- 
league, who  took  the  man's  blood-pressure,  and 
found  that  his  instrument  read  143  (thus  cor- 
roborating my  friend's  finding).  It  was  a  long 
time  before  he  could  allay  the  patient's  justly- 
aroused  fears.  What  must  one  think  of  the  other 
two  physicians? 

We  see  from  the  above  recital,  how  many  and 
varied  are  the  elements  that  cause  ungrounded 
fear  in  the  minds  of  both  the  normal  and  the 
abnormal;  how  the  element  of  evil  in  human 
life  is  not  only  aggravated  by  bad  methods  of 
education,  but  how  fears  are  created  in  the  mind 
by  such  wrong  procedures,  fears  that  have  no 
basis  in  reality;  and  how,  in  general,  a  false 
view  of  life  as  a  whole  is  engendered  through 
such  misinformation  and  such  pernicious 
methods. 

It  must  be  quite  clear  to  us,  then,  that  the 
worst  evils  of  human  life  do  not  exist  at  all  in 
the  world  without;  they  are  created  in  the  inner, 
psychic  world.    For  we  not  only  bear  those  ills 


THE     PROBLEM     OF     EVIL  II3 

we  have,  but  we  fly  to  others  that  we  have  not 
known  until  some  pernicious  force  or  some  well- 
meaning  person  plants  them  in  our  minds. 

Finally,  let  me  here  reiterate  that  to  the  nor- 
mal person  life  seems  good.  Wherever  a  man  or 
a  woman  is  to  be  found  who  takes  misanthropo- 
morphic,  pessimistic,  cynical  views  of  the  world 
and  its  Creator,  it  may  usually  be  concluded 
that  that  person  is  suffering  from  a  vicious  com- 
plex with  its  accompanying  neurosis  or  hysteria. 
In  this  connection  we  must  mention  the  psy- 
choses or  so-called  insanities,'  especially  of  the 
melancholic  or  manic-depressive  type,  which  ex- 
hibit all  the  symptoms  of  the  hysterias,  which, 
if  they  are  not  caused  by  false  religious  teaching, 
at  least  show  a  bad  religious  outlook,  with  all  the 
fear  of  death  and  the  Hereafter,  or  of  having 
committed  the  "unpardonable  sin"  (whatever 
that  may  be),  and  which  give  the  patient  a  bad 
outlook  on  life.  These  have  been  considered 
extremely  difficult  or  impossible  to  cure.  It  is 
likely,  it  may  be  said  for  the  encouragement  of 
the  nervous  patient,  that  these  are  of  far  less 
frequent  occurrence  than  was  formerly  sup- 
posed, since  the  more  frequent  neuroses  and  hys- 
terias have  many  of  the  same  symptoms.  Even 
for  the  psychoses,  the  outlook  is  more  favorable 

1  This  is  the  field  for  the  alienist,  not  for  the  lay  writer.  This 
paragraph  must  therefore  be  considered  with  due  caution,  as  the 
observation  of  the  layman  is  naturally  too  limited  to  allow  of 
dogmatic  statement. 


114  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

than  formerly,  since  in  their  incipient  stages 
they  are  amenable  to  psycho-analytic  treatment. 
As  for  the  neuroses  and  the  hysterias  (it  is 
difficult  to  draw  the  line  between  them),  I  think 
that  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  they  are  never  con- 
genital, that  they  have  their  origin  some  time  in 
the  Hfe,  usually  the  very  early  life,  of  the  patient, 
that  they  are  in  a  majority  of  cases  curable  by 
modern  psycho-therapeutic  methods,  and  that 
with  their  cure  the  individual  who  saw  all  of  life 
as  unmixed  evil  becomes  sane,  normal,  and  opti- 
mistic, and  that,  as  he  is  drawn  out  of  himself 
and  his  inner  conflicts  are  resolved,  his  mental 
and  moral  equilibrium  is  restored  and  he  sees 
that  life  is  on  the  whole  good.  Rid  of  his  neuro- 
sis and  its  anxieties,  he  will  cease  vexing  himself 
with  the  futile  questions  whether  a  good  God  has 
created  and  orders  the  universe,  why  if  He  is 
good  he  allows  evil  in  the  world,  and  whether  in 
such  a  world  any  effort  is  worth  while,  for  he  will 
realize  that  these  metaphysical  doubts  were  the 
objectification  of  his  own  inner  conflict,  now 
ended  forever.  Instead  of  these  futile  question- 
ings and  introspection  which  leads  no  whither, 
he  will  turn  his  gaze  outward,  utilize  his  energy 
for  social  ends,  and  strive  to  make  the  world  bet- 
ter by  his  effort  rather  than  waste  his  energies 
in  repining. 


VII.  PATHOLOGICAL  RELIGIOUS  TYPES 

WE  saw  in  a  former  chapter  how  certain 
religious  states  are  the  direct  outcome  of 
neurotic  tendencies,  and  how  certain  complexes 
may  drive  the  devotee  to  the  repressed  state 
where  the  mystic  experience  is  possible. 

We  have  seen  how  the  complex-driven  in- 
dividual may  seek  refuge  from  reality  in  oneness 
with  God.  On  the  other  hand,  he  may  be  driven 
entirely  away  from  religion,  into  religious  doubt, 
agnosticism,  or  atheism.  In  this  connection  we 
have  noted  how  the  (Edipus-complex,  which  in- 
volves hatred  of  the  father  or  the  father-image, 
may  direct  the  individual's  hatred  to  God  as  the 
Father  of  mankind.  We  have  likewise  seen 
something  of  the  so-called  metaphysical  neu- 
rotic type,  who  cannot  let  a  day  pass  without 
questioning  the  beneficence  of  the  Creator  and 
whose  world-view  (Weltanschauung)  is  a  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  vicious  complex. 

The  complex  may  appear  in  other  types  than 
the  mystic  or  the  religious  doubter.  There  is 
the  Sadistic  type,  who  derives  great  enjoyment 
from  pain  inflicted  upon  others.  The  term  is 
derived  from  the  novels  of  the  Comte  de  Sade, 
which  exploit  the  cruelty  of  man  to  woman.  Re- 
us 


Il6  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

ligious  fanatics  have  frequently  evinced  such  a 
disposition  in  relation  to  their  fellow-men.  To 
comprehend  this  trait,  we  must  understand  the 
psychic  history  of  the  individual. 

Every  child  normally  lives  through  a  Sadistic 
period,  when  his  keenest  pleasure  is  from  pain 
inflicted  upon  others.  The  small  boy,  apparently 
from  wanton  cruelty,  loves  to  torture  a  poor  toad 
or  vivisect  a  harmless  frog.  I  have  seen  small 
boys  drag  water-snakes  from  the  brook  and, 
grasping  them  by  the  tail,  snap  their  heads 
off.  "How  horrible!"  some  one  may  say.  Yes, 
but  the  child  must  live  through  the  history  of  the 
human  race ;  this  Sadistic  period  is  the  period  of 
savagery  which  he  is  living  through.  It  is  the 
period  during  which  he  loves  to  bully  younger 
and  smaller  children;  it  probably  gives  him  a 
feeling  of  superior  strength  and  courage.  Pfister 
{Psycho-analytic  Method,  page  77)  speaks  of  a 
sixteen-year-old  boy  who  "sees  a  charming  kit- 
ten sitting  in  the  sun.  At  once  there  awakens 
in  him  the  burning  desire  to  maltreat  it.  A  fear- 
ful unrest  seized  him  until  he  procured  a  stick 
and  struck  the  sleeping  animal  on  the  nose  with 
all  his  strength.  The  young  cat  was  half  dead 
from  pain  and  fright  but  the  boy  had  a  strong 
feeling  of  pleasure." 

The  youth  was  of  course  abnormal.  In  nor- 
mal individuals,  the  Sadistic  period  is  quickly 
outgrown,  and  the  growing  youth  becomes  in- 
creasingly conscious   of  kindly,   altruistic  im- 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        II7 

pulses,  his  attention  is  focused  on  the  world 
without  and  its  varied  demands,  he  prepares  for 
his  life-work,  and  this  involves  the  consideration 
of  others.  But  there  are  individuals  in  whom 
this  tendency  is  never  broken  up,  who  are  Sadis- 
tic all  their  lives  long.  These,  in  the  political 
world  are  the  Neroes.  They  fiddle  while  Rome 
burns;  they  love  to  see  writhing  victims  boiled 
in  oil  or  serving  as  human  torches  to  light  a  fes- 
tal night.  It  stirs  some  dead  impulse  in  them  to 
renewed  life,  they  doubtless  have  a  keen  sense 
of  well-being  while  the  torturing  process  is  going 
on.  Sardou  gives  us  a  grimly  realistic,  if  revolt- 
ing, picture  in  his  play  Tosca,  in  which  he  de- 
picts the  abnormal  elderly  roue  Scarpia  making 
amorous  advances  to  the  singer,  Floria  Tosca, 
while  the  groans  of  her  tortured  lover  are  heard 
and  the  reflection  of  the  torture-fire  is  seen,  from 
an  adjoining  room. 

The  Sadistic  type  is  frequently  found  in  the 
religious  life.  Tertullian,  one  of  the  Church 
Fathers,  described  as  an  "expert  controversial- 
ist," is  said  to  have  declared  that  one  of  the  chief 
pleasures  of  the  saint  in  heaven  is  to  gaze  over 
the  battlements  at  sinners  suffering  in  the  flames 
of  hell  below.  Torquemada,  father  of  the  Span- 
ish Inquisition,  first  Grand  Inquisitor  under  Fer- 
dinand and  Isabella,  was  strongly  Sadistic. 
Under  his  jurisdiction,  the  dungeons  of  the  Do- 
minican monastery  at  Seville  became  too  small 
to  hold  the  numerous  prisoners  incarcerated  for 


Il8   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

some  heresy,  and  more  than  two  thousand  were 
burned  within  a  year  or  two.  Horrible  beyond 
belief  are  the  engines  of  his  cruelty:  the  rack, 
the  thumb-screw,  the  iron  virgin  lined  with 
spikes,  the  Procrustian  bed  to  lit  which  the 
prisoner's  limbs  were  drawn  out  until  the  bones 
cracked,  or  were  lopped  off  as  the  case  neces- 
sitated. The  inquisitors  were  inflamed  with  a 
blood-lust  which  only  increasingly  terrible  tor- 
tures would  satisfy.  It  was  all  done  to  "the 
glory  of  God,"  that  is,  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  CEdipus-complex.^ 

We  shrink  with  horror  from  contemplation  of 
these  scenes,  and  well  we  may,  for  we  know  that 
these  inquisitors  were  abnormal,  that  they  were 
the  victims  of  some  neurosis.  What  we  fail  to 
realize  is  that  Sadism  in  modified  and  less  cruel 
form  prevails  in  religion  even  to  the  present  day. 
The  days  when  Catholic  persecuted  Protestant, 
as  in  the  Huguenot  massacre  on  St.  Barthol- 
omew's Eve  in  France,  when  Protestant  perse- 
cuted Catholic,  as  in  the  days  of  Henry  VIII  in 
England  or  the  Calvinistic  regime  in  Geneva, 
when  the  stern-visaged  Puritans  drove  the  Qua- 

1  Salome,  who  had  demanded  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist  as  a 
reward  for  her  dandng,  is  a  type  of  Sadism.  As  portrayed  in 
Oscar  WDde's  play  of  that  name,  she  has  fallen  wildly  in  love 
with  John,  who  resists  her  advances.  Her  craving  is  gratified  by 
the  beheading  of  John;  she  takes  the  severed  head  in  her  arms 
and  lavishes  fondest  caresses  upon  it;  a  disgusting  spectacle  and 
one  which  could  have  been  conceived  by  no  normal  man.  Dr. 
Coriat  has  made  a  masterly  analysis  of  the  play. 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        II9 

kers  from  their  midst  —  these  days  seem  remote. 
Yet,  so  long  as  individuals  suffer  from  some  vi- 
cious complex  which  arises  from  an  infantile  fix- 
ation, Sadism  in  religion  will  persist.  We  are  all 
familiar  with  individuals  who  subject  their 
wives  to  extreme  cruelty  which  runs  the  gamut 
from  dragging  a  woman  about  by  the  hair  of  her 
head  to  subjecting  her  to  bitter  invective,  humili- 
ating her  in  public,  making  life  a  burden  to  her 
in  numerous  cruel,  if  petty  ways.  These  types 
are  pathological;  their  Unconcious  is,  so  to 
speak,  still  in  a  state  of  infancy.  They  suffer 
from  arrested  development,  not  intellectual,  but 
emotional.  Their  minds  may  be  keen,  their 
brains  alert,  they  may  seem  to  be  mature,  but 
emotionally  they  are  still  cruel  monsters  of 
young  boys.    They  need  psychic  re-education. 

It  may  seem  strange,  but  churches  are  full  of 
this  type;  long-faced  saints  who  would  deprive 
the  young  of  all  innocent  amusement,  and  who 
see  evil  in  the  most  harmless  of  youthful  diver- 
sions. Suffering  as  they  do  from  repression  of 
their  own  sex  instinct,  they  read  evil  meanings 
into  all  associations  of  the  sexes.  They  see  evil 
in  all  things  because  they  delight  to  see  evil,  non- 
plussed though  they  would  be  at  the  discovery 
of  their  inner  motives!  It  is  their  pleasure  to 
deprive  others  of  everything  which  might  make 
them  happy.  How  utterly  selfish  their  philos- 
ophy of  life  is  they  cannot  realize,  for  they  are 
pathological  individuals  who,  from  no  fault  of 


120  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

their  own,  have  been  made  to  see  life  in  somber 
hues;  they  are  the  misogynists,  the  pessimists, 
the  cynics.  Let  us  look  upon  them  with  charity, 
for  they  are  not  to  blame  for  their  condition  and 
their  lives  are  desperately  unhappy. 

Apparently  opposed  in  character  to  the  Sadist, 
yet  vastly  similar,  is  the  Masochist,  who  derives 
pleasure  from  pain  inflicted  upon  himself.  Mas- 
ochism takes  its  name  from  an  Austrian  novelist, 
Sacher-Masoch,  who  depicted  this  form  of 
cruelty  in  his  novels.  The  Masochist,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  chapter  on  "Mysticism,"  gains  the 
greatest  pleasure  from  pain  which  he  inflicts 
upon  himself  or  induces  others  to  inflict  upon 
him.  While  this  seems  the  opposite  of  Sadism, 
it  is  in  reality  a  derivative  or  reaction  therefrom. 
We  have  seen  how,  by  the  principle  of  ambiva- 
lence or  change  of  values,  an  emotion  can  change 
into  its  precise  opposite;  we  often  see  strong 
love  transformed  into  equally  strong  hate. 
It  may  also  happen  that  the  Masochist  has  in- 
flicted pain  upon  others  until  it  no  longer  arouses 
his  jaded  appetites,  and  accidentally  finds  that 
pain  inflicted  upon  himself  will  still  act  as  a 
stimulus.  Sometimes,  this  tendency  may  be 
caused  by  love  of  violent  contrast.  Paul  is  a 
good  example  of  this  ambivalent  tendency. 

St.  Francis,  who  was  reared  in  great  luxury, 
albeit  under  the  domination  of  a  harsh  father, 
when  he  finally  turned  to  the  ascetic  life,  re- 
moved the  very  garments  he  was  wearing  and 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        121 

offered  them  to  his  father  at  the  altar,  an  act 
which  can  be  interpreted  only  as  Masochistic. 
It  was  the  extreme  and  superfluous  symbolic  re- 
nunciation of  his  former  life.  The  Indian  fakir 
exhibits  this  trait  when  he  holds  one  arm  out- 
stretched until  it  becomes  shrivelled  and  atro- 
phied, or  walks  barefoot  over  hot  coals.  The 
religious  recluse  who  betakes  him  to  the  desert 
places  to  endure  extreme  privation,  and  the  pillar 
saint  who,  like  St.  Simon  Stylites,  spends  his  life 
on  the  top  of  a  tall  pillar,  where  he  gains  in  grace 
what  he  loses  in  comfort  and  thus  becomes  the 
admired  of  the  ignorant  multitude,  think,  like 
those  of  old  who  offered  rich  sacrifices,  to  pro- 
pitiate the  gods  by  the  richest  gifts  in  their  power 
to  bestow,  and  are  examples  of  the  Masochistic 
tendency  in  religion.  Origen,  a  great  and  good 
man,  mistaking  the  sense  of  Matthew  xix  12, 
actually  practiced  self-mutilation,  in  order  to 
win  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

The  self-deprecatory,  saintly,  meek  type  which 
formerly  we  met  so  frequently  in  our  churches, 
is  decidedly  Masochistic.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  Christian  woman  who  bears 
meekly  the  abuses  of  a  Sadistic  husband,  derives 
a  Masochistic  pleasure  from  the  pain  and  fright. 
As  we  saw  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  Christian 
martyrs  had  developed  a  strong  Masochistic 
strain  in  their  religion,  so  that  they  went  to  tor- 
ture and  death  with  songs  upon  their  lips. 

We  have  seen  in  the  chapter  on  the  "Motiva- 


122    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

tion  of  Human  Life,"  that  all  our  decisions  are  in 
reality  "value  judgments,"  that  there  is  always 
in  human  life  a  balancing  of  one  good  against 
another,  and  that  the  ego  chooses  that  thing 
which  promises  the  greatest  happiness.  For 
some  men  this  is  immediate  pleasure  without  re- 
gard to  consequences;  for  others,  the  greater 
reward  is  some  far-off  good,  for  which  they  will 
forsake  present  pleasure.  Normal,  abnormal. 
Sadistic,  Masochistic  —  all  are  making  impor- 
tant decisions  from  day  to  day  through  this  very 
mechanism  which  I  have  described  at  such 
length  in  these  chapters.  If  our  complexes  are 
such  that  we  can  see  only  present  good,  we  will 
reach  out  and  grasp  it  at  all  costs;  if  our  com- 
plexes point  to  the  future,  we  will  eschew  pres- 
ent good  for  future  reward.  Hence,  our  lack  of 
comprehension  of  one  another.  Completely  to 
understand  one  another,  we  should  have  to  know 
our  varied  life  histories  and  the  complexes  which 
motivate  human  life.  We  needs  must  have  a 
background  of  the  new  psychology  ere  we  can 
get  a  grasp  on  the  motivation  of  life,  or  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  religious  t5rpes. 

There  seems  but  little  purpose  in  any  lengthy 
discussion  of  the  psychoses  in  this  place.  From 
our  present  knowledge  of  the  subject,  we  are 
reasonably  safe  in  saying  that  religion  per  se, 
in  any  of  its  phases  or  with  any  of  its  dogmas, 
has  never  really  driven  man  or  woman  mad.  A 
psychosis  will  very  often,  however,  take  on  re- 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        I23 

ligious  coloring,  or  will  prove  the  instigating 
cause  that  drives  the  individual  into  religious 
seclusion,  bad  religious  teaching  may  help  to 
develop  the  psychosis,  or  the  self-reproaches  in- 
cident to  the  advance  of  the  psychosis  will  cause 
him  to  seek  peace  and  consolation  at  the  foot  of 
the  altar.  A  youthful  sufferer  from  dementia- 
praecox  whom  Pfister  treated,  was  in  the  habit 
of  drawing  pictures  of  chapels  surrounded  by 
cypress  trees  in  front  of  which  a  river  ran  with 
floating  corpses.  The  same  youth  would  go  and 
sit  for  hours  opposite  an  insane  asylum,  longing 
to  be  insane  so  that  he  might  have  the  seclusion 
and  isolation  in  which  to  dream  his  erotic  dreams 
and  develop  his  erotic  fancies  unmolested.  Had 
a  monastery  been  as  conveniently  situated  as 
the  asylum,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  youth 
would  have  longed  for  the  cloistered  peace  of  a 
religious  institution  rather  than  the  cell  of  an 
insane  asylum.  Environment  often  furnishes 
convenient  molds  into  which  neurotic  fancies 
may  be  poured,  and  though  the  content  will  be 
the  same,  the  form  will  vary  as  the  environment 
predisposes.  Patients  with  "delusions  of  gran- 
deur" will  build  up  their  visions  in  the  form  of 
magnificent  palaces  and  great  cities,  which  may 
vary  from  some  heathen  Elysium  or  Walhalla,  to 
castles  in  Spain,  or  the  New  Jerusalem,  accord- 
ing as  their  early  training,  environment,  or  read- 
ing predispose  them. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  religion  per  se 


124  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

has  never  driven  a  normal  person  into  a  psy- 
choneurosis;  it  cannot  be  called  a  definite,  effi- 
cient cause  of  such  a  malady.  We  know  defi- 
nitely, however,  that  an  over-ascetic  early  train- 
ing, harshness  of  over-religious  parents  or 
teachers,  have  helped  to  develop  neuroses,  espe- 
cially those  arising  from  the  CEdipus-complex. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  harsh  and  over- 
strict  religious  training  plays  a  prominent  role 
in  the  development  of  neurotic  fancies.  A  con- 
spiracy of  evil  events  and  conditions,  together 
with  too  exacting  religious  and  moral  demands, 
has  often  seemed  to  drive  an  individual  into  a 
definite  psychoneurosis,  chronic  and  incurable ;  it 
is  doubtful,  however,  whether  these  were  more 
than  chance  instigators  of  the  neurosis  or  the 
precipitating  cause,  the  real,  fundamental  cause 
lying  elsewhere.  It  is  also  likely  that  the  psy- 
chology which  deals  with  this  province  has  suf- 
fered from  a  too  ardent  desire  upon  the  part  of 
the  alienist  to  classify  and  categorize.  The  many 
classes  of  "religious  mania"  are  probably  noth- 
ing but  different  aspects  of  the  same  sort  of 
neurosis;  one  is  appalled  at  the  elaborate  and 
artificial  classifications  of  the  older  psychology, 
every  individual  development  of  neurosis,  or 
hysteria,  bringing  out  a  new  classification.  More- 
over, many  ailments,  which  involve  personal 
eccentricities,  vagaries,  oddities,  or  even  more 
serious  nervous  difficulties,  and  which  were  for- 
merly included  among  the  psychoses,  are  now 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        I25 

seen  to  be  curable  neuroses,  not  congenital,  but 
acquired,  and  therefore  curable.  When  the  neu- 
rosis is  cured,  the  morbid  religious  emotion  of 
the  patient  disappears. 

Thus,  the  religious  hallucinations  which  are 
hysterical  phenomena  due  to  repressions,  disap- 
pear when  the  sex-craving  is  released  from  the 
long  repression  and  the  patient  becomes  normal. 
The  woman  who  had  visions  of  Christ  coming 
and  bearing  her  away  in  his  arms  to  heaven,  who 
saw  angels  ascending  and  descending  a  celestial 
stair,  with  purple  clouds  of  glory,  ceased  to  be- 
hold these  visions  when  her  nervous  difficulty, 
which  was  caused  by  sexual  trauma,  was  cured. 

It  sometimes  occurs  that  certain  of  the  split- 
off  personalities  of  a  dissociated  personality  will 
be  highly  religious,  while  others  will  be  irreli- 
gious, profane,  and  even  blasphemous  to  the  last 
degree.  One  of  the  personalities  of  Miss  Beau- 
champ,  whom  Dr.  Prince  cured  of  her  dissocia- 
tion, was  sober,  subdued,  and  very  religious  and 
devout,  whereas  the  "Sally"  personality  was 
harum-scarum  and  unprincipled,  delighting  to 
inflict  pain  (Sadistic-Masochistic  complex) 
upon  the  more  sober  personahty.  At  one  period 
of  the  treatment.  Miss  Beauchamp  was  horrified 
to  behold  in  a  gazing-crystal  a  vision  of  herself 
smoking  a  cigarette,  the  work  of  the  mischievous 
Sally. 

The  value  of  a  religion  which  drives  the  in- 
dividual away  from  the  living,  pulsing  world  of 


126  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

men  and  things  is  questionable,  even  if  it  be  not 
due  to  a  definite  neurosis,  hysteria,  or  psychosis. 
If  religion  does  not  help  man  to  adapt  himself 
to  his  environment,  nor  fit  him  to  play  a  definite, 
decisive,  active  role  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
social  organism,  it  has  little  value  either  for  him- 
self or  for  others.  The  picture  of  the  mild-eyed 
ascetic  living  a  secluded  other-worldly  life  is  not 
attractive  to  the  modern  mind,  for  it  seems  to 
this  age  abnormal.  To  normal  persons,  it  seems 
a  woeful  waste  of  energy,  a  life  futile  and  unpro- 
ductive, therefore  unhappy.  It  is  indeed  a  living 
death. 

Lest  the  reader  think  I  have  been  unfair  to  re- 
ligion, allow  me  to  say  that  many  most  suc- 
cessful sublimations  have  come  about  through 
its  beneficent  agency.  Christianity  has  done 
wonders  in  the  way  of  inducing  a  healthy,  liber- 
ating piety.  No  danger  to  religion  is  to  be  feared 
from  psycho-analysis.  Pfister  {Psych.  An. 
Method,  p.  414)  says:  "While  psycho-analysis 
may  disclose  the  emptiness  of  religious  errors,  it 
is  helpful  to  a  healthy  piety  which  increases 
moral  strength.  To  me,  it  is  a  mystery  how 
anxious  souls  can  fear  damage  to  religion  and 
morality  from  psycho-analysis.  How  closely  the 
results  of  the  latter  stand  to  the  commands  of 
the  Gospel,  is  easily  demonstrated."  Likewise 
Coriat  ("The  Future  of  Psycho-analysis,"  Psy- 
choanalytic Review,  October,  191 7):  "As  a  type 
of  emotional   sublimation,   religion,   using   the 


PATHOLOGICAL     RELIGIOUS     TYPES        127 

term  in  its  broadest  sense  without  any  reference 
to  any  particular  dogma,  offers  one  of  the  most 
effective  and  satisfactory  roots  for  the  subli- 
mating process."  I  trust  that  this  will  be  made 
sufficiently  clear  in  the  chapter  on  "Conversion." 


VIII.    THE    OCCULT   IN    MODERN 
RELIGIOUS  SYSTEMS 

IN  all  religious  systems,  from  the  most  primi- 
tive down  to  the  most  modern,  the  belief 
has  been  inculcated  that  when  the  physical  body 
dies,  the  personality  survives.  The  Greeks  and 
the  Romans  believed  that  beyond  the  River  Styx 
lay  the  abode  of  the  dead,  a  sort  of  dream-world, 
where  the  shades  of  the  departed  wandered  in 
dim  meadows,  wan  shadows  of  their  former 
selves.  Dante  has  transferred  much  of  this 
classic  mythology  to  his  Divina  Commedia,  add- 
ing certain  mediaeval  imagery  and  demonology. 
The  American  Indian  believed  that  the  departed 
warrior  would  survive  in  the  Happy  Hunting 
Ground,  and  survivors  sent  along  with  the  dead, 
food  and  beasts  of  burden  for  the  long  journey. 
Norse  mythology  has  its  Walhalla  to  whose  hal- 
lowed heights  warriors  fallen  in  battle  are  borne 
aloft  by  Walkyrs,  where  they  sit  forever  feast- 
ing and  on  occasion  tilting  in  celestial  jousts 
whence  they  emerge  unwounded  to  feast  again. 
Mohammedanism  has  its  Paradise  where  dark- 
eyed  houris  wait  upon  him  who  has  died  true  to 
the  faith. 

Z98 


THE    OCCULT    IN    RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       129 

Christianity  no  less  has  its  heaven  and  its  hell. 
They  are  a  mixture  of  ancient  Judaism,  classic 
mythology,  mediaeval  imagery,  and  modern 
thought.  The  golden  streets  and  pearly  gates 
are  Apocalyptic  in  character;  the  flames  of  hell 
are  classic  and  mediaeval. 

Of  late,  due  no  doubt  to  the  incalculable  loss 
of  life  in  the  late  war,  there  has  been  a  wide- 
spread revival  of  spiritualism,  or  spiritism  as 
the  more  scientific  incline  to  call  it.  The  So- 
cieties for  Psychical  Research,  British  and 
American,  have  been  concerned  for  many  years 
with  a  scientific  investigation  of  the  question  of 
conscious  survival  after  bodily  death,  and  have 
much  remarkable  evidence  to  present.  Circum- 
stantial data  have  been  given  through  veracious 
(that  is,  honest  and  sincere)  mediums  of  the 
character  of  the  life  of  the  hereafter. 

Whether  a  real,  objective  reality  lies  behind 
this  evidence,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say;  let  us 
leave  that  to  specialists  in  the  field  like  Dr.  Hys- 
lop  and  other  psychic  researchers.  I  am  con- 
cerned with  viewing  the  whole  matter  from  the 
psycho-analytic  points  of  view,  and  pointing  out 
how  easily  we  may  be  misled  by  tricks  of  the 
Unconscious  in  our  researches  in  this  field. 

Let  us  first  ask  whence  arises  this  universal 
demand  for  a  continuation  of  conscious  life  after 
physical  disintegration?  It  seems  to  me  that 
Freud's  explanation  is  correct.  The  Unconscious, 
he  states,  cannot  conceive  of  itself  as  armihil- 


130  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

ated.^  The  world  is  not  even  conceivable  as 
having  real  existence  without  human  conscious- 
ness to  witness  it.  These  trees  that  we  behold 
with  their  stately  branches  waving  in  the  breeze, 
the  birds  flitting  from  bough  to  bough,  the  ten- 
der grass  on  which  we  lean;  all  these  are  objects 
external  to  us,  but  the  thing  we  know  is  not  these 
externals  themselves,  but  our  perceptions  of 
them,  not  our  physical  environment,  but  our 
reactions  to  that  environment,  our  conceptions 
of  it  tinged  by  the  emotional  color  which  our 
complexes  give  it.  We  cannot  conceive  of  a  tree 
falling  in  the  remotest  forest  without  conceiving 

1  Reflections  on  War  and  Death,  page  40:  "Our  attitude 
(toward  death)  has  not  been  a  sincere  one.  To  listen  to  us  we 
were,  of  course,  prepared  to  maintain  that  death  is  the  necessary 
termination  of  hfe,  that  everyone  of  us  owes  nature  his  death 
and  must  be  prepared  to  pay  his  debt;  in  short,  that  death  was 
natural,  undeniable,  and  inevitable.  In  practice  we  were  ac- 
customed to  act  as  if  matters  were  quite  different.  We  have 
shown  an  unmistakable  tendency  to  put  death  aside,  to  ehminate 
it  from  life.  We  attempted  to  hush  it  up,  in  fact,  we  have  the 
proverb:  to  think  of  something  as  death.  Of  course  we  meant 
our  own  death.  We  cannot,  indeed,  imagine  our  own  death; 
whenever  we  try  to  do  so  we  find  that  we  survive  ourselves  as 
spectators.  The  school  of  psycho-analysis  could  thus  assert  that 
at  bottom  no  one  believes  in  his  own  death,  which  amounts  to 
saying:  in  the  Unconscious  every  one  of  us  is  convinced  of  his 
immortality."  Page  62  (ibid) :  "Our  Unconscious  does  not  be- 
lieve in  its  own  death;  it  acts  as  though  it  were  immortal. 
What  we  call  our  Unconscious,  those  deepest  layers  in  our  psyche 
which  consist  of  impulses,  recognizes  no  negative  or  any  form 
of  denial  and  resolves  all  contradictions,  so  that  it  does  not 
acknowledge  its  own  death,  to  which  we  can  give  only  a 
negative  content." 


THE    OCCULT     IN     RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       I3I 

at  the  same  time  that  there  is  a  witness  to  hear 
the  sound  and  see  the  falling  tree.  So  bound  up 
are  events  of  the  external  world  with  our  inner 
consciousness.  When  we  think  of  the  external 
world  at  all,  we  must  think  of  ourselves  as  view- 
ing it.  Between  the  occasions  when  we  view 
and  react  to  familiar  scenes,  we  can  scarcely 
conceive  of  them  as  existent. 

"What?"  we  query,  when  a  childhood  scene 
is  revisited  after  long  years  of  absence,  "are 
these  trees  still  the  same,  does  the  grass  still 
grow,  do  those  cottages  still  stand,  do  those  even- 
ing shadows  still  slant  across  the  meadow  as  of 
old?"  So  hard  it  is  to  conceive  of  any  reality 
apart  from  our  own  personality. 

So  poignant  is  the  feeling,  so  deep  the  an- 
guish, that  the  world  may  go  on  as  before  with 
its  many  activities  and  innumerable  objects,  its 
myriad  relationships,  when  we  are  no  longer  here, 
that  the  Unconscious  refuses  to  grasp  or  accept 
such  a  concept,  the  heart  will  not  harbor  nor 
tolerate  such  a  feeling.  As  it  is  with  so  many 
beliefs,  the  wish  is  father  to  the  thought,  deep- 
seated  desire,  basic,  primitive,  inherent,  creates 
a  belief  in  the  thing  it  seeks.  Hence,  the  Uncon- 
scious refuses  to  accept  the  death-sentence.  "I 
know,"  says  the  devout  person,  "that  there 
must  be  life  after  death,  because  I  feel  it  in  my 
heart."   Just  so. 

From  this  deep-seated,  racial  longing  for  life 
eternal,  men  have  built  up  elaborate  and  com- 


132    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

plex  religious  systems,  full  of  occult  ideas.  Thus 
the  systems  of  spiritism  and  theosophy  have 
been  built  upon  certain  Oriental  philosophies, 
certain  classic  myths,  a  great  deal  of  primitive 
imagery  and  thought,  certain  metaphysical  con- 
cepts of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  varied  strands 
have  been  woven  into  elaborate  modern  systems. 
It  is  the  process  by  which  all  religious  systems 
grow,  that  is,  by  absorption  of  ancient  and  con- 
temporary ideas,  and  elaborating  them  into  a  re- 
Hgious  philosophy. 

In  modern  spiritistic  systems,  the  evidence  is 
gathered  either  through  professional  or  amateur 
mediums,  or  through  such  devices  as  ouija,  plan- 
chette,  automatic  writing,  or  the  like.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  phenomena  thus  pro- 
duced well  up  directly  from  the  Unconscious. 
The  Unconscious,  as  has  been  proved  again  and 
again,  is  a  tricksy  sprite;  it  loves  to  assume  va- 
ried and  motley  roles,  play  little  dramas,  take 
some  suggestion  and  work  it  out  in  some  fan- 
tastic manner ;  it  loves  any  situation  that  brings 
it  into  the  limelight.  I  do  not  claim  that  all 
spiritistic  evidence  is  merely  some  phenomenon 
produced  by  the  Unconscious,  but  I  do  say  that 
we  must  be  constantly  on  our  guard  against  its 
tricks.  This  much  is  assured:  that  whereas  the 
evidence  for  survival  after  bodily  death  may 
come  from  some  region  beyond  the  Unconscious, 
at  all  events  it  all  comes  through  the  Uncon- 
scious.   It  is  more  than  likely  that  most  of  the 


THE    OCCULT     IN     RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       I33 

so-called  evidence  gathered  at  amateur  sittings 
is  the  direct  work  of  the  Unconscious,  striving 
for  recognition,  playing  its  characteristic  pranks. 

Many  of  the  phenomena  of  a  spiritistic  seance 
can  be  produced  by  almost  any  group  of  people 
who  will  go  through  the  necessary  procedure,  sit 
with  patience  and  await  developments.  Many 
persons  have  experimented  with  table-tipping, 
planchette,  ouija,  and  automatic  writing,  with- 
out the  slightest  notion  of  attributing  any  sig- 
nificance to  the  phenomena  thus  obtained  be- 
yond the  natural  and  the  every-day.  I  have  sat 
with  a  group  around  a  small  table,  with  finger- 
tips touching;  after  a  time  a  tingling  is  felt  in 
the  fingers  and  up  and  down  the  arm  (doubtless 
due  to  motor  stimuli  of  some  sort),  and  soon 
after  the  table  will  begin  to  move  about  the 
room,  apparently  of  its  own  volition.  This  group 
was  not  in  the  least  interested  in  summoning 
spirits  from  the  vasty  deep  nor  gathering  evi- 
dence of  life  after  death;  the  table-tipping  was 
merely  a  diversion,  undertaken  to  convince  my 
sceptic  mind  that  it  could  be  done,  and  was 
attributed  to  some  unknown  magnetic  or  electric 
force  generated  by  the  human  body.  I  was 
ready  to  aver  that  the  movement  was  not  due  to 
muscular  action,  but  to-day  I  am  not  so  sure  on 
that  point.  Had  we  asked  questions  of  the 
moving  table,  doubtless  we  should  have  had 
replies. 

Ouija  has  furnished  interesting  and  diverting 


134   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

moments.  I  have  had  messages  from  ouija 
which  purported  to  come  from  departed  friends. 
In  every  case  they  were  puerile  and  untrust- 
worthy. While  working  with  ouija  one  evening 
with  a  friend,  a  message  which  it  was  spelling 
out  in  reply  to  some  question  was  rudely  inter- 
rupted, the  little  tripod  was  violently  wrested 
from  our  hands  (or  so  it  seemed)  and  the  sen- 
tence, "This  is  Lonnie,"  was  spelled.  To  the 
query,  "Who  is  Lonnie?"  the  board  replied, 
"Lonnie,  otherwise  Lawrence  Ungar."  It  then 
proceeded  to  give  a  lengthy  and  circumstantial 
account  of  the  life  of  one  Lawrence  Ungar,  who 
claimed  to  have  been  a  chaplain  in  the  Federal 
Army  during  the  Civil  War.  He  was  buried,  so 
it  was  claimed,  in  a  certain  small  town  in  South 
Carolina.  For  some  time,  on  every  occasion 
when  we  experimented  with  ouija,  this  Lonnie 
would  break  in  and  insist  upon  communicating. 
Here  was  a  strange  state  of  affairs.  I  finally 
wrote  to  the  postmaster  of  the  town  in  which 
Lonnie  was  alleged  to  be  buried.  I  received  a 
reply  stating  that  no  man  of  that  name  had  ever 
lived  there  and  certainly  was  not  buried  there. 
The  whole  thing,  it  appeared,  was  a  hoax  of  the 
Unconscious.  He  who  has  read  Freud's  Inter- 
pretation of  Dreams,  will  readily  understand 
the  mechanism  by  which  the  Unconscious  had 
built  up  the  scenes  of  the  little  drama  and  played 
it  to  our  amazement,  not  to  say  amusement. 
In  the  first  place,  I  had  been  thinking  of  an 


THE    OCCULT    IN    RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS      I3S 

old  school  friend  named  "Lawrence,"  nicknamed 
"Lonnie,"  just  prior  to  "Lonnie's"  first  appear- 
ance. The  friend  who  helped  operate  the  board 
had  been  reading  an  article  on  Hungary,  hence 
the  name  "Ungar."  On  the  day  previous  to  our 
experiment  with  the  board,  I  had  visited  the 
grave  of  my  grandfather,  who  had  fought  in  the 
Civil  War  and  who  was  known  as  a  very  devout 
man,  with  some  pretension  to  gifts  of  preaching 
and  exhorting.  I  myself  was  a  student  for  the 
ministry  and  my  mind  was  naturally  preoccupied 
with  the  responsibilities  of  my  chosen  vocation. 
The  mother  of  the  friend  who  operated  the 
board  with  me  was  staying  at  a  resort  in  South 
Carolina  not  far  from  the  small  town  which  Lon- 
nie  claimed  as  his  native  place.  Here,  then,  was 
all  the  material  for  the  little  drama,  a  sort  of 
dream  condensation.^  The  little  play  itself  was 
evidently  the  joint  product  of  unconscious  proc- 
esses in  the  two  minds.  Conan  Doyle  relates 
a  somewhat  similar  experience;  after  which  he 
wrote  to  an  address  given  him  in  similar  fashion, 
but,  appropriately  enough,  as  he  says,  the  letter 
was  returned  to  him  from  the  Dead  Letter 
Office! 

While  I  should  not  wish  to  go  on  record  as 
attributing  all  such  phenomena  to  some  similar 
mechanism,  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  much  of 
the  so-called  evidence  for  survival  after  death 
can  be  readily  explained  on  the  same  basis. 

1  See  Appendix  for  "dream  condensation." 


136   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

There  is,  for  instance,  planchette,  which  is  oper- 
ated through  the  use  of  a  small  pencil  attached 
to  a  triangular  board  with  wheels,  which  moves 
over  the  paper  and  writes.  As  it  is  operated  by 
only  one  person  as  a  rule,  it  seems  likely  that 
it  is  a  variant  on  autom_atic  writing.  As  a  rule 
the  replies  obtained  from  planchette  are  trivial 
in  the  extreme;  they  are  such  that  it  seems  a 
waste  of  time  to  bother  with  it  at  all.  The  wife 
of  an  engineer  of  my  acquaintance,  who  had  two 
small  boys,  put  this  question  to  planchette, 
"What  will  my  boys  do  when  they  are  grown?" 
and  the  reply  was  written,  "J.  will  be  an  engi- 
neer, W.  will  be  a  sport." 

In  most  automatic  writing  are  revealed  traces 
of  dissociated  personality.  While  it  has  been 
used  as  a  method  of  tapping  the  Unconscious  or 
bringing  to  light  the  psychic  processes  of  the 
split-off  personality,  it  has,  in  some  cases  at  least, 
tended  to  aggravate  the  symptoms  and  increase 
the  malady.  The  procedure  is  thus:  The  indi- 
vidual sits  down  with  pencil  and  paper,  he  en- 
gages in  irrelevant  conversation  or  reads  a  book- 
While  his  attention  is  thus  consciously  diverted, 
his  hand  and  arm  begin  to  work  automatically 
and  he  writes,  although  until  he  reads  what  he 
has  written  he  is  not  aware  of  its  content.  Some 
part  of  consciousness  which  has  an  independent 
existence  is  operative  here;  it  is  similar  to  the 
little  drama  which  v/e  played  with  the  aid  of 
ouija.    Certain  suggestions  have  been  brought  to 


THE    OCCULT     IN    RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS      137 

the  Unconscious;  independently  of  conscious 
mental  effort  or  processes,  these  suggestions  have 
been  elaborated  into  a  psychic  series  which  has 
the  appearance  of  continuity  and  consecutive- 
ness.  Like  hysterical  symptoms  (in  certain  cases 
automatic  writing  is  an  hysterical  symptom), 
automatic  writing  is  the  effort  of  unconscious, 
repressed  forces  to  break  through  into  conscious- 
ness and  find  an  outlet  in  motility.  They  show 
the  same  process  of  symbolism,  elaboration,  con- 
densation and  displacement  as  the  "dream- 
work"  (see  Freud's  Interpretation  of  Dreams, 
Chapter  VI,  for  a  full  discussion  of  the  dream- 
work),  and  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  pa- 
tient's life. 

A  subject  was  given  to  automatic  writing. 
The  paper  would  be  headed  with  certain  roughly- 
drawn  symbols.  A  circle  within  a  triangle  was 
the  favorite,  with  small  crosses  dotted  about. 
Then  would  follow  a  prophecy  in  a  stilted.  Latin- 
ized style,  that  the  end  of  the  dominance  of  the 
white  races  had  come  and  the  yellow  and  black 
races  would  now  have  their  turn  at  world-domin- 
ion, or  a  similar  message,  couched  in  vague  and 
general  terms.  During  a  psycho-analytic  treat- 
ment which  had  been  unduly  prolonged,  but 
which  I  hesitated  to  interrupt  since  abreaction 
was  unusually  successful,  the  subject  suddenly 
saw  a  purple  light,  like  a  cloud  of  translucent  va- 
por, near  the  twilit  window  toward  which  she  was 
gazing,  and  she  lifted  up  her  voice  in  prophetic 


138   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Strain,  declaring  that  President  Wilson  would 
lose  much  of  his  prestige  and  popularity  in 
days  to  come  from  political  opposition.  I  saw 
at  once  that  she  was  in  a  semi-hypnotic  state, 
and  proceeded  to  bring  her  out  of  it,  by  stating 
almost  rudely  that  any  person  who  read  the 
daily  papers  could  safely  make  such  a  prediction 
(it  was  at  the  time  when  there  was  general  dis- 
cussion over  the  President's  first  published  draft 
of  the  Peace  Treaty)  and  that  "it  needs  no  ghost 
come  from  the  grave  to  tell  us  that."  This  sub- 
ject, who  was  of  a  philosophical  and  speculative 
turn  of  mind,  had  been  reading  a  good  deal  of 
theosophical  literature  which  dealt  with  reincar- 
nation, the  lost  Atlantis,  and  the  like;  she  was 
an  interested  reader  of  current  events,  and  in  her 
own  environment  there  was  little  opportunity 
for  expression  of  her  views.  Her  Unconscious 
had  elaborated  the  suggestions  brought  to  it, 
and  worked  out  these  Cassandra-like  prophecies 
and  given  expression  to  them  in  her  automatic 
writing  and  speech  when  in  a  semi-hypnotic 
state.  When  she  was  cured  of  her  neurosis,  the 
writing  ceased,  since  she  found  her  satisfactions 
in  real  life. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  how  readily  those  anxious 
for  communications  from  the  dead  may  be  de- 
ceived by  manifestations  and  phenomena  which 
purport  to  be  supernatural.  The  Unconscious 
of  normal  persons  will  at  times  play  strange 
pranks,  and  in  the  case  of  neurotics  these  will 


THE    OCCULT    IN     RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       139 

take  on  the  hue  of  the  supernatural.  We  have 
therefore  to  be  on  our  guard  when  dealing  with 
such  phenomena. 

The  more  mystic  and  occult  forms  of  religion 
attract  the  neurotic  inasmuch  as  they  enable  him 
to  fly  from  reality.  Thousands  of  neurotics  have 
turned  to  spiritism  and  theosophy  as  a  refuge 
from  their  too-harsh  environment.  This  is  not 
an  arraignment  of  these  systems,  as  thousands 
have  likewise  flown  to  the  protection  of  more 
conventional  religious  systems  for  the  same 
reason.  With  the  neurotic  who  seeks  refuge  in 
these  systems,  the  occultism,  the  element  of  the 
supernatural,  appeal  to  his  neurotic  love  of  new 
sensations,  the  phenomena  serve  to  stimulate 
jaded  mental  appetites;  these  neurotics  are  like 
drug-addicts,  going  from  medium  to  medium, 
spending  large  sums  of  money,  and  living  on  the 
sensations  derived  from  the  highly-seasoned 
mental  food  purveyed.  The  primitive  Uncon- 
scious is  strong  in  all  neurotics,  and  just  as  the 
witch-doctor  makes  the  savage  marvel  with  his 
prophecies  and  manifestations,  so  the  commer- 
cial medium  makes  the  neurotic  marvel. 

I  think  it  likely  that  in  the  case  of  neurotics, 
table-tipping,  use  of  ouija,  planchette,  and  auto- 
matic writing  serve  to  fix  and  aggravate  the  neu- 
rosis and  produce  further  mental  dissociation. 
In  some  such  cases,  the  whole  mental  and  moral 
life  has  been  given  over  to  the  primitive  im- 
pulses of  the  Unconscious.    Whereas  in  the  nor- 


140   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

mal  individual,  intellectual  effort  rears  a  struc- 
ture of  thought  which  serves  to  control  and  di- 
rect the  Unconscious,  through  the  practices  of 
spiritism  the  neurotic  gives  the  Unconscious  more 
and  more  dominance  of  his  life,  until  complete 
mental  and  moral  breakdown  may  ensue.  As 
spiritists  themselves  say,  "When  you  open  the 
door  to  departed  spirits,  all  sorts  of  entities  may 
enter  in."  To  this  they  attribute  all  the  so- 
called  "spirit  obsessions,"  and  the  vagaries  fre- 
quently to  be  noted  in  the  lives  of  mediums.  In 
some  cases,  a  severe  psycho-neurosis  may  de- 
velop. Here  let  me  say  once  more  that  I  do  not 
believe  any  form  of  religion  drives  a  normal  man 
or  woman  into  a  neurosis;  the  neurotic  symp- 
toms assume  such  form  as  environment  enables 
them  to  assume.  The  point  is  not  that  these 
systems  are  in  a  way  abnormal,  but  that  ab- 
normal persons  are  drawn  to  them  and  certain 
religious  practices  may  fix  and  develop  abnormal 
tendencies.^    Psychic  research,  to  say  the  least, 

1  The  reader  may  object  that  my  statement  that  "no  normal 
person  is  driven  into  a  neurosis  by  religion,  that  this  is  an 
accessory  or  instigating  cause,"  must  depend  largely  upon  my 
definition  of  normality;  that,  in  fact,  I  make  the  spirit  in  which 
an  individual  takes  the  troubles  of  this  life  a  test  of  normality. 
This  is  true;  I  believe  it  is  the  one,  vaUd,  real  test  of  normahty: 
how  the  individual  takes  his  afflictions,  how  successfully  he  faces 
his  life-problem  and  bears  his  burdens.  If  he  faces  reality  and 
overcomes  or,  if  that  be  impossible,  bears  his  troubles  manfully,  he 
is  normal.  If  he  is  driven  into  a  neurosis,  he  is  abnormal,  the 
seed  of  his  disorder  must  have  been  sown  long  before  in  his 
infantile  Ufa. 


THE    OCCULT    IN    RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       141 

is  a  field  of  inquiry  into  which  we  must  enter 
with  the  greatest  caution  and  where  we  must 
constantly  be  on  guard  against  self-deception 
and  the  charlantanry  of  the  baser  sort  of  com- 
mercial professional  medium. 

Let  us  close  this  chapter  with  a  discussion  of 
certain  larger  aspects  of  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  the  Unconscious  to  life  after  death. 
A  number  of  writers  (Hudson  being  the  first,  I 
believe,  in  his  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,  and 
James  and  Maeterlinck  holding  to  the  same  be- 
lief in  variant  form)  have  advanced  the  theory 
that  subliminally,  all  consciousness  is  one,  that 
in  the  Unconscious  all  psychic  life  is  united  in 
one  vast  whole.  Hudson  deduces  from  this 
(which  he  himself  terms  a  "working  hypothe- 
sis") that  the  Unconscious  is  thus  the  immortal 
part  of  personality  and  the  sea  of  consciousness 
which  it  taps  is  the  sea  of  eternity.  He  endeav- 
ors to  explain  all  psychic  phenomena  on  this 
basis,  referring  all  evidence  for  life  after  death, 
or  indeed  any  transference  of  thought  over  a 
distance  between  the  living  or  the  living  and  the 
dead,  to  the  well-known  "telepathic  hypothe- 
sis." He  claims  that,  inasmuch  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  both  living  and  departed  persons  is  a 
part  of  this  vast  sea,  all  individuals  are  thus  en 
rapport  with  one  another  and  that  if  one  sounds 
(to  carry  out  the  figure)  in  the  proper  portion 
of  this  vast  sea,  any  information  that  any  person 
has  ever  had  in  his  grasp  may  be  brought  to  light. 


142    RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Hudson  thought  that  we  are  storing  up  memories 
and  images  in  the  Unconscious  for  utiHzation  in 
the  Hfe  to  come.  James  held  to  a  modified  form 
of  this  belief  (see  his  essay  on  Immortality) , 
although  he  did  not  stretch  the  telepathic  hy- 
pothesis so  far. 

Let  it  be  said  right  here  that  the  deepest  re-  ? 
cesses  of  the  Unconscious  have  been  tapped  by 
modern  psycho-analytic  methods,  but  nothing 
has  as  yet  been  brought  to  light  that  supports 
this  view.  When  the  Unconscious  is  tapped  by 
psycho-analytic  methods,  the  matter  brought  to 
light  is  that  connected  with  the  subject's  own 
past  experience,  his  childhood  memories,  appar- 
ently forgotten  events  and  persons  of  his  past  — 
circumstances  important  from  the  viewpoint  of 
psycho-therapeutics,  but  nothing  beyond  these. 
It  seems  extremely  unlikely  that  the  very  un- 
scientific views  mentioned  above  will  bear  the 
light  of  investigation,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
more  thoroughly  the  Unconscious  is  examined, 
the  less  tenable  these  fantastic  theories  will  be 
found  to  be. 

Maeterlinck,  in  a  comparatively  recent  book, 
instances  a  young  girl  who  was  hypnotized  and 
whose  memory  was  forced  back  to  earliest  child- 
hood, then  to  infancy,  then  to  a  pre-natal  state. 
Suddenly  the  timbre  of  the  girl's  voice  changed 
and  became  that  of  an  old  woman  who  claimed 
that  she  had  lived  at  a  certain  period  prior  to 
the  girl's  birth.     Again  the  method  of  regres- 


THE    OCCULT    IN    RELIGIOUS     SYSTEMS       I43 

sion  was  used  and  the  timbre  of  the  voice 
changed  once  more  and  became  that  of  an  old 
man,  who  claimed  to  have  been  a  soldier  of  the 
Guarde  of  the  first  Napoleon.  Some  persons 
have  taken  this  as  proof  of  the  theory  of  rein- 
carnation. It  seems  more  than  likely  that  it 
was  nothing  more  than  a  characteristic  trick  of 
the  Unconscious,  utilizing  bits  of  information 
which  the  girl  had  gathered  during  her  waking 
life,  which  had  impinged  upon  the  margin  of 
consciousness,  were  quickly  repressed,  and  were 
elaborated  into  this  little  drama.  To  one  who 
has  read  Prince's  Dissociation  of  a  Personality, 
and  has  learned  of  the  metamorphoses  which 
a  dissociated  personality  can  undergo,  every 
separate  one  of  the  multiple  personalities  mani- 
festing a  highly  individualized  character,  this 
explanation  will  be  the  most  acceptable.  Com- 
pare Coleridge's  famous  case  of  the  German  girl 
ill  of  a  fever,  who  spoke  in  Latin,  Greek  and 
Hebrew  (James:  Psychology  I,  page  68 1,  quoted 
in  Lay's  Man's  Unconscious  Conflict),  although 
in  her  waking  life  she  knew  nothing  of  these 
languages.  It  transpired  that  at  the  age  of  nine 
she  had  been  taken  into  the  home  of  a  Protes- 
tant pastor,  a  great  Hebrew  scholar,  and  that  it 
had  been  the  good  man's  custom  to  walk  up  and 
down  a  passage  leading  into  the  kitchen  and  read 
to  himself  aloud  from  his  books.  "The  books 
were  ransacked  and  among  them  were  found  sev- 
eral of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers,  together 


144   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

with  a  collection  of  Rabbinical  writings.  In 
these  works  so  many  of  the  passages  taken  down 
at  the  young  woman's  bedside  were  identified, 
that  there  could  be  no  reasonable  doubt  as  to 
their  source." 

It  is  evident,  is  it  not,  that  in  the  examination 
of  psychic  phenomena,  the  element  of  the  super- 
natural must  rigorously  be  excluded  wherever 
there  can  be  found  a  natural  explanation.  It  is 
only  by  such  means  that  we  shall  at  length 
arrive  at  the  truth. 


IX.     CONVERSION  AND  ATTENDANT 
PHENOMENA 

CONVERSION  may  be  considered  the  cli- 
mactic event  of  the  rehgious  life,  for  which 
conviction  of  sin,  repentance,  and  the  search 
for  God  are  preparatory  measures.  When  the 
sinner  is  at  length  "converted,"  "regenerated," 
"attains  salvation,"  "has  been  redeemed,"  as  the 
phrases  variously  run,  it  is  held  that  he  launches 
on  a  new  and  regenerated  life.  Whereas  for- 
merly he  was  at  odds  with  life,  now  he  is  pre- 
sumably one  with  God,  living  not  under  the 
Law  but  under  Grace,  in  tune  with  all  that  is 
good  and  beautiful  and  worthy  in  the  universe. 
Old  temptations  no  longer  have  power  to  lure 
him  from  his  new  love,  old  fetters  of  sin  have 
been  broken  leaving  him  in  a  new-found  and 
glorious  freedom;  he  is  no  longer  the  "old 
Adam,"  conceived  in  sin  and  eternally  lost,  he 
is  the  God-man,  walking  according  to  the  per- 
fect law  of  God. 

Such  is  the  ideal  of  conversion.  Let  us  ex- 
amine its  origin  and  its  mechanism.  What 
really  happens  when  the  individuaTrs  converted? 
Ere  we  answer  this  fundamental  question,  we 
must  seek  to  ascertain  what  conditions  lead  him 

I4S 


y 


146   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

to  seek  conversion,  what  sort  of  man  this  is 
who  seeks  conversion,  and  why  he  seeks  it. 
This  leads  us  to  a  consideration  of  re-birth. 


I.     The  Re-birth 

The  first  fact  to  be  made  clear  is  that  not  all 
individuals  feel  the  need  of  regeneration,  not  all 
have  a  "conviction  of  sin,"  some  never  have  it, 
and  have  no  clear  conception  of  it.  These  are 
the  individuals  free  from  neurotic  taint,  who 
have  been  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  love  and 
kindliness,  and  have  never  felt  internal  con- 
flict. William  James  quotes  Emerson  {Vari- 
eties^ page  167,  note)  as  saying,  "Our 
young  people  are  diseased  with  the  theolog- 
ical problems  of  original  sin,  origin  of 
evil,  predestination,  and  the  like.  These 
never  presented  a  practical  difficulty  to 
any  man  —  never  darkened  across  any  man's 
road,  who  did  not  go  out  of  his  way  to  seek  them. 
They  are  the  soul's  mumps  and  measles,  and 
whooping-coughs." 

There  seems  to  be  here  a  fundamental  mis- 
apprehension of  the  problem.  We  have  pre- 
viously seen  that  the  "conviction  of  sin"  is  due 
to  man's  internal  conflicts,  that  it  arises  when  the 
inner  primitive  urge  comes  in  conflict  with 
outer,  moral  mandates,  that  it  is  a  feeling  of  be- 
ing "out  of  tune"  with  life,  especially  immediate 
environment.     The  morbid  introspection,  the 


CONVERSION  147 

exggerated  feeling  of  guilt  of  the  neurotic  are 
well-known.  Such  souls  have  been  well  termed 
*'sick  souls."  These  feelings  are  the  product  of 
neurotic  disturbance.  It  is  therefore  not  true 
that  the  theological  problems  of  which  Emerson 
speaks  "never  presented  a  practical  difficulty  to 
any  man." 

On  the  other  hand,  James  fails  to  sense  that 
those  who  must  "be  born  again  to  be  happy" 
are  nervously  ill  individuals.  He  speaks  of  the 
"divided  self"  which  attains  unity  through  sal- 1/^ 
vation.  What  he  seems  not  to  realize  is  that 
this  "divided  self"  is  the  sick  self,  that  such  feel- 
ing is  always  and  everywhere  indicative  of  a 
neurosis;  that  the  "divided  self"  is  never  the 
normal  self,  indicating  as  it  does  a  discordant, 
neurotic  personality,  and  that  conversion  may  or 
may  not  synthesize  such  a  self  into  perfect 
unity.  Conversion  is  an  emotional  experience  ^ 
and  it  may,  like  the  "mystic  experience,"  which 
it  closely  approximates,  work  a  cure.  The 
"divided  self"  may  on  the  other  hand  require 
the  good  offices  of  modern  psycho-therapeutics  i 
rather  than,  or  in  addition  to,  the  offices  of  the 
clergyman. 

We  saw  in  Chapter  I  how  every  great  reli- 
gious system  has  its  dogma  of  atonement  and  its 
dogma  of  the  expiating  death  of  the  god.  What 
was  not  at  that  time  made  clear  is  what  gave 
rise  to  the  belief  that  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
god  the  individual  was  "born  again." 


148   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

The  idea  of  re-birth  is  as  old  as  the  human 
race,  and  it  has  its  inception  in  a  definite, 
individual,  unconscious  biological  wish.  When 
Freud  began  to  examine  the  Unconscious  of 
certain  of  his  patients,  he  discovered  to  his 
amazement  that  these  neurotics,  in  their  in- 
tense unconscious  desire  to  escape  from  the 
world,  actually  longed  to  be  back  in  the  mother's 
womb,  thence  to  issue  forth  in  new  and  normal 
form.  He  approached  this  field  with  great 
caution;  indeed,  such  a  wish  hardly  seemed 
credible  to  him,  until  he  had  corroborated  his 
first  conclusions  by  analysis  of  a  large  number  of 
persons,  both  by  the  hypnotic  method  and  by 
psycho-analysis.  The  patient  in  hypnotic  trance 
revealed  the  wish ;  the  patient  who  symbolized 
the  wish  in  well-known  dream  symbols,  revealed 
the  wish  when  this  unconscious  material  was 
brought  up  into  consciousness. 

This  fantasy  appears  in  the  earliest  myths, 
slightly  disguised  in  folk-tales,  and  in  more  or 
less  symbolized  form  in  dreams.  Every  prim- 
itive cosmology  has  its  "Urmutter,"  its  primitive 
mother,  from  whom  creation  sprang.  In  Baby- 
lonian conceptions  of  the  beginning  of  things, 
the  primitive  mother  is  Tiamat,  from  whose 
body  creation  springs.  In  Judaism  we  have 
Tehom,  the  deep,  which  is  also  feminine  and 
shows  traces  of  a  similar  cosmology.  Greek 
and  Roman  mythology  have  a  primitive 
mother   of    all    things,    Ops    or    Rhea.       For 


CONVERSION  149 

the  primitive,  the  process  of  creation  would 
naturally  be  similar  to  the  biological  process  of 
birth  in  man.  There  is  much  evidence  also  of  a 
re-birth  wish  in  primitive  myths. 

There   is  strong  evidence   for   this  wish   in 
dreams.    Pfister  tells  of  a  highly  neurotic  woman 
who  dreamed  that  she  passed  through  a  slimy 
canal  in  a  boat,  and  that  there  was  a  slippery, 
slimy  wall,  up  which  she  climbed  by  the  aid  of 
her  pastor.     This  was  discovered  to  be  a  re- 
birth fantasy,  the  canal  symbolizing  the  amnio- 
tic liquor,  the  climbing  out  the  issuance  of  the 
infant  in  the  act  of  birth,  and  so  on.    Dr.  Coriat 
speaks  of  cases  where  a  patient  dreams  of  a  long, 
slimy  tunnel  through  which  he  passes  and  thence 
issues  into  the  light.     This  seems  so  fantastic 
and  incredible,  not  to  say  distasteful  to  most 
minds,  that  no  one  can  be  blamed  for  doubting 
the  interpretation  of  such  dreams,  but  this  fact 
must  be   faced:    these   are   not   the   arbitrary 
interpretations  put  upon  fantastic  dreams  by  the 
analyst,  they  are  revealed  by  the  patient  him- 
self and  accepted  by  him  as  the  correct  interpre- 
tation! '      Where    both    the    psycho-analytic 
method  and  hypnosis  have  been  used  with  the 
same  patient,  this  fact  is  even  more  strongly 
corroborated.    Let  us  remember  in  this  connec- 
tion the  little  Greek  folk-song  quoted  on  page 
67  as  a  self-interpreted  phallic  dream. 
It  is  definitely  established,  then,  by  modern 

1  See  Appendix  II,  page  249. 


150   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

experimental  psychology  that  the  neurotic  does 
desire  this  re-birth  in  the  gross,  biological  sense. 
He  desires  it  as  a  resolution  of  his  inner  conflict. 
The  followers  of  Jesus  were  familiar  with  this 
wish,  and  one  of  his  enemies  goes  so  far  as  to 
ask  whether  a  man  can  be  born  again  in  the 
biological  sense.  Jesus  refines  upon  this  primi- 
tive idea,  he  makes  it  the  symbol  of  the  life  re- 
generated, spiritualized,  refined  of  selfishness, 
even  while  he  recognizes  the  prevalence  and  the 
neurotic,  biological  character  of  the  wish  in  its 
original  form.  "Unless  ye  be  bom  again,"  is 
his  reiterated  condition  of  entrance  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven;  man  must  undergo  some 
process  of  psychic  transformation  ere  he  can 
enter  into  this  Kingdom;  what  this  is  we  shall 
strive  to  ascertain. 


2.  The  Method  of  Conversion 

The  means  of  attaining  to  the  spiritual  re- 
birth are  similar  to  those  which  precede  the 
"mystic  experience,"  which  it  closely  parallels, 
the  main  difference  being  that  conversion  is  sup- 
^  posed  to  have  a  permanent  effect  upon  the 
^  individual's  life  whereas  the  "mystic  experience" 
is  for  a  brief  instant.  There  is  the  same  novi- 
tiate, or  period  of  spiritual  preparation  preced- 
ing the  actual  experience.  There  is  a  period  of 
prayer  and  struggle,  of  "wrestling  with  God" 
(compare  the  wrestling  of  Jacob  and  the  angel, 


CONVERSION  151 

Genesis  xxxii,  24-32),  a  period  of  deepest 
anguish  when  the  spirit  seems  cut  off  from  God ; 
then  follows  a  period  of  temptation  to  resume 
the  old  life,  finally,  the  spirit  emerges  into  a  state 
of  exaltation,  then  into  a  state  of  peace  and 
tranquillity.  This  psychic  process  is  not  peculiar 
to  Christianity.  It  may  even  be  better  studied, 
since  we  may  study  it  without  bias,  in  ethnic 
religions.  The  Buddhist  calls  this  experience 
"attaining  enlightenment." 

In  his  "Light  of  Asia,"  Edwin  Arnold  tells  how 
Siddartha,  the  Buddha,  attained  enlightenment. 
First  of  all,  he  renounced  his  princely  station 
with  all  its  trappings  (he  had  been  awakened  to 
the  pain  and  misery  of  life  by  the  sight  of 
poverty  and  disease)  and  wandered  about  as  a 
mendicant  seeking,  as  the  neurotic  seeks,  the 
meaning  of  evil.  He  went  and  sat  him  down  at 
the  mouth  of  a  cave, 

Subduing  that  fair  body  bom  for  bliss 

With   fast  and   frequent   watch    and   search   intense 

Of  silent  meditation. 

When  he  was  finally  prepared,  he  took  his 
place  under  the  sacred  Bodhi-tree  and  there 
came  to  tempt  him  all  evil  powers, 

The  fiends  who  war  with  Wisdom  and  the  Light, 
Arati,  Trishna,  Raga,  and  their  crew 
Of   passions,   horrors,   ignorances,   lusts, 
The  brood  of  gloom  and  dread. 

Then  came  the  ten  chief  Sins:  the  Sin  of  Self, 


152    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Doubt,  False  Faith  or  Deceit,  Lust,  Hate,  Lust 
of  Fame,  Lust  of  Days,  Pride,  Self-Righteous- 
ness, Ignorance.  But  as  the  dawn  broke,  these 
all  fled,  having  spent  their  force  in  vain,  and 
the  Buddha  attained  enlightenment,  or  freedom 
from  desire.  He  attained  that  exalted  state  in 
which  henceforth,  according  to  legend,  his  fol- 
lowers knew  him,  and  nothing  could  shake  him 
from  this  state  nor  bring  the  return  of  his  old 
self. 

In  the  same  way  is  told  the  familiar  story  of 
Jesus,  how  he  went  fasting  in  the  wilderness 
forty  days  and  forty  nights,  and  then  came  the 
Tempter  and  offered  him  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  but  he  would  not,  and  finally,  came  peace 
and  tranquillity  and  ministering  angels  sent  from 
heaven  restored  his  worn  body  to  health. 

How  may  we  account  for  the  striking  similar- 
ity of  two  stories  of  such  widely  different  origin? 
How,  except  that  this  represents  a  not  uncom- 
mon experience  in  human  life?  These  stories 
are,  in  fact,  highly  symbolized  versions  of  the 
struggle  that  goes  on  in  the  breast  of  the 
neurotic,  only  the  struggle  is  within  and  not 
without.  The  sequence  corresponds  exactly: 
First  something  occurs  to  depress  the  normal 
psychic  life  —  corresponding  to  the  period  of 
fasting  and  penance  —  and  while  the  individual 
is  thus  depressed,  he  is  beset  by  temptation  — 
that  is  to  say,  his  appetites,  which  are  kept  under 
control  during  normal  periods  because  of  the 


CONVERSION  IS3 

pressure  brought  to  bear  by  the  society  in  which 
he  Hves,  but  which  still  exist  repressed  in  the 
Unconscious,  emerge  from  their  subterranean 
lair  and  assail  him,  so  that  the  poor  wretch 
knows  not  where  to  look  for  relief  or  release 
from  these  enemies.  In  his  weakened  state,  the 
Unconscious  gets  the  upper  hand  in  the  struggle 
—  corresponding  to  the  temptations  of  the 
Buddha  and  of  Jesus  —  and  assails  him  with  its 
desires.  Finally,  through  the  sharp  struggle, 
the  individual  abreacts  his  painful  emotions  — 
he  drives  the  rampant  demons  of  desire  away  — 
he  re-lives  his  painful  past  with  suitable  affect, 
rids  himself  of  vicious  complexes,  and  emerges 
into  a  state  of  peace  —  the  ministering  angels 
of  a  mind  at  peace  restore  his  mental  health. 
Sometimes  he  represses  his  evil  demons  still  more 
and  thus  obtains  a  temporary  peace,  but  at 
frightful  cost. 

These  profound  psychic  changes  are  attended 
by  a  violent  emotional  upheaval.  At  a  camp 
meeting,  I  have  seen  the  men  obsessed  with  "con- 
viction of  sin"  writhing  on  the  ground,  grimac- 
ing, and  apparently  suffering  horribly.  At  the 
same  meeting  I  saw  a  new-made  convert,  who 
had  doubtless  abreacted  his  painful  emotions 
and  found  release  from  his  obsessing  demons  and 
was  now,  in  the  excess  of  exultant  emotion,  run- 
ning around  in  circles  shouting  at  the  top  of  his 
voice  that  he  had  found  salvation.  These  are 
no  doubt  crude  types;  nevertheless,  this  is  the 


154  RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

sort  of  emotional  upheaval  that  characterizes 
conversion.  Of  its  reality,  that  is,  of  the  reality 
of  some  profound  psychic  change,  there  can  be 
no  doubt. 
j  I  have  said  that  all  conversion  experiences 
"^  eventuate  in  a  changed  life.  In  the  cases  where 
conversion  is  most  beneficial,  the  individual 
"sublimates,"  that  is,  brings  the  repressed 
craving  up  into  consciousness  and  turns  the 
energy  thus  released  to  social  uses.  He  then 
becomes  the  practical,  normal  Christian.  But 
in  other  cases,  abreaction  is  not  complete,  the 
triumph  over  obsessing  fears  and  anguish  is 
but  temporary,  and  when  the  initial  impetus 
given  the  individual  by  his  conversion  experience 
is  spent,  he  "back-slides,"  in  which  case  he  may 
be  in  even  worse  state  than  before. 

The  conversion  experience  does  not  always 
have  religious  color.  A  new-found  love,  the 
death  of  a  hated  relative,  an  access  of  good  for- 
tune, a  thousand  other  influences,  may  bring 
about  the  longed-for  re-birth  or  sublimation: 
any  influence  which  breaks  up  the  infantile  fix- 
ation of  which  the  individual  was  victim,  de- 
stroys the  vicious  complex,  unifies  his  person- 
ality, and  makes  him  a  whole  man  in  tune  with 
his  God  and  his  universe.  This  is  the  solution 
of  the  religious  problem. 

James  (Varieties,  pp.  iio-iii)  speaks  of 
"salvation  by  relaxation"  as  the  surest  means  of 
attaining  salvation  and  inward  peace.     "Cast 


CONVERSION  155 

thy  burden  upon  the  Lord,"  is  the  counsel  given 
to  the  convert.  Modern  psycho-therapeutics 
offers  similar  counsel.  "Give  up  the  struggle," 
says  the  new  psychology;  "you  gain  nothing 
thereby,  you  are  but  adding  resistance  to  re- 
sistance, using  valuable  energy  and  getting  no- 
whither."  (Coriat  points  out  that  this  "casting 
the  burden  upon  the  Lord"  corresponds  to  the 
transference  of  the  mental  anguish  from  the  sub- 
ject to  the  physician  in  psycho-analysis,  who 
may  thus  temporarily  become  a  father-sub- 
stitute, and  ultimately  a  bridge  over  which  the 
subject  passes  into  the  world  of  reality  and  to 
mental  health.  Thus  the  "Heavenly  Father"  in 
conversion  represents  the  father-complex.) 
The  advice  to  give  up  the  struggle  is  wholesome, 
for  it  is  true  that  the  individual  gains  nothing 
by  prolonging  the  inner  conflict.  His  shadowy 
yet  potent  enemy  is  elusive,  like  the  Boyg  in 
Ibsen's  Peer  Gynt,  and  cannot  be  overcome  by 
such  tactics.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  in 
cases  where  conversion  has  been  effective,  it  is 
where  the  individual  whose  consciousness  is  a 
battle-ground  of  opposing  forces  gives  up  the 
struggle.  We  saw  the  same  phenomenon  in  the 
mystic  experience.  The  exact  moment  or  point 
in  his  experience  when  he  gives  up  the  struggle 
seems  inconsequential.  The  essential  is  that  he 
give  it  up.  Just  as  the  subject  gives  up  his  con- 
flict and  transfers  the  painful  emotions  to  the 
analyst,  so  in  true  conversion  the  convert  gives 


IS6   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

up  his  burden  of  sin  or  self-reproach  and  "casts 
it  upon  the  Lord."  The  fiercer  the  struggle, 
the  greater  the  abreaction,  the  stronger  the 
transference,  and  the  more  complete  the  relief 
and  inner  peace.  It  is  likely  that  the  one  good 
end  of  the  despairing  struggle  of  the  convert 
Avith  his  sins  is  to  demonstrate  beyond  per- 
adventure  the  utter  futility  of  the  struggle,  the 
uselessness  of  prolonging  the  inner  conflict. 

If,  then,  the  "struggle  not  availeth,"  shall  the 
individual  yield  himself  a  victim  to  his  baser 
appetites,  go  down  in  defeat  before  them,  and 
live  his  life  on  a  level  with  the  beast  of  the  field? 
Not  at  all;  this  is  not  the  result  of  "conversion 
by  relaxation"  nor  of  the  psycho-analytic  treat- 
ment. This  is  the  result  that  enemies  of  Freud 
have  claimed  for  his  methods,  but  facts  do  not 
bear  out  the  truth  of  their  contentions.  Freud 
has  strongly  animadverted  upon  what  he  calls 
"wild  analysis,"  that  is,  the  analysis  which  ad- 
vocates and  encourages  sexual  indulgence.  The 
successful  modern  analyst  advises  that  patients 
do  not  indulge  in  promiscuous  sexual  indul- 
gence; his  aim  is  to  make  the  subject  a  whole, 
normal,  healthy  man.  He  really  raises  the  Un- 
conscious to  a  higher  cultural  level  by  his  treat- 
ment, enables  the  subject  to  sublimate  or  turn 
the  released  energy  to  social  uses,  and  so  brings 
his  life  to  a  higher  level.  The  moral  effect  of 
promiscuous  sexual  indulgence  is  always  bad, 
for  the  subject  will  thus  become  a  victim  of 


CONVERSION  157 

remorse,  add  more  resistances  and  eventually 
increase  his  moral  conflict;  thus  his  state  will 
be  worse  in  the  end  than  in  the  beginning. 
The  aim  of  both  religious  conversion  and  the 
psycho-analytic  treatment  is  to  raise  the  subject 
or  convert  to  a  higher  moral  level,  resolve  his 
inner  conflicts  whereby  he  wastes  much  time  and 
valuable  energy,  bring  him  out  of  himself,  elim- 
inate his  morbid  introspection,  and  thus  make 
him  a  useful,  social  citizen,  one  who  faces  his 
life-problem  and  solves  it  not  in  vain  imaginings 
but  in  reality/ 

^  See  final  paragraph  of  Chapter  VII  on  religious  sublimation 
page  126. 


X.  THE  CHANGING  BASIS  AND  OBJEC- 
TIVE   OF   RELIGION 

TWENTY-FIVE  years  ago,  if  a  member  of 
one  of  our  Christian  sects  were  asked  to  de- 
fine the  main  objective  and  purpose  of  religion, 
he  would  doubtless  have  replied,  "The  salvation 
of  the  individual  soul,  the  getting  right  with  God, 
through  the  great  Atonement  of  His  only-be- 
gotten Son,  Jesus  Christ."  Similarly,  the  Egyp- 
tian might  have  replied  to  the  same  question, 
"The  propitiation  of  the  gods  through  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  the  god  Osiris."  The  fol- 
lower of  the  Dionysus  Cult  would  have  said, 
"The  propitiation  of  the  gods  through  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  the  god  Dionysus."  The 
Parsee  would  say,  "The  approach  to  Ahura- 
Mazda  through  the  wisdom  and  sacrifice 
of  the  sage  Zarathustra."  The  followers  of 
the  Mithra  Cult  would  have  said,  "The  propi- 
tiation of  the  gods  through  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Mithraic  bull."  The  Buddhist  would  say,  "The 
attainment  of  enlightenment  by  following  the 
path  which  Siddartha  trod." 

While  such  comparisons  may  seem  invidious, 
the  fact  is  that  until  the  last  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  main  objective  and  purpose 

iS8 


BASIS     AND     OBJECTIVE     OF     RELIGION       159 

of  religion  seem  scarcely  to  have  changed  since 
the  most  primitive  times.  The  aim  of  the  most 
enlightened  of  modern  religious  systems  —  the 
salvation  of  the  individual  through  the  expiating 
sacrifice  of  some  being  more  worthy  than  himself 
to  bear  his  load  of  sin  —  is  strikingly  similar  to 
the  aim  of  primitive  religion  —  the  propitiation 
of  "whatever  gods  there  be"  through  sacrifice 
and  vicarious  atonement. 

Until  some  time  near  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  religion,  which  was  highly  individualis- 
tic, was  still  in  a  primitive  stage.  But  the 
changes  in  social  life  wrought  by  many  forces: 
the  invention  and  increasing  use  of  machinery, 
the  widespread  use  of  the  printing  press,  which 
sent  the  news  of  the  day  flying  over  the  globe, 
telegraph,  telephone,  improved  methods  of  man- 
ufacture and  transportation,  the  advance  of 
science,  which  brought  forth  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion, a  wider  spread  of  learning  through  educa- 
tional institutions,  an  increased  specialization 
of  labor,  which  made  men  more  interdepen- 
dent while  it  brought  them  into  closer  social 
contact  —  all  of  these  forces,  working  for  the 
socialization  of  humanity,  wrought  a  concomi- 
tant change  in  religious  life,  changed  its  purpose 
and  objective. 

In  the  days  of  the  handicrafts,  life  had  been 
more  individualistic,  each  man  being  his  own 
capitalist  and  his  own  laborer ;  communities  were 
separated  by  lack  of  facilities  for  communication 


l6o  RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

and  transportation  (until  the  invention  of  the 
steam  railroads,  transportation  had  not  been  im- 
proved upon  since  the  days  of  Caesar);  each 
community  led  an  autonomous  life.  Each  com- 
munity boasted  but  one  church  in  Colonial  days; 
it  embraced  the  entire  community,  and  the 
parish  was  limited  only  by  the  confines  of  the 
community.  A  Calvinistic  form  of  Congrega- 
tionalism marked  the  early  New  England 
churches.  By  accident  of  birth,  the  individual 
was  a  member  of  the  parish;  but  to  become  a 
member  of  the  church,  he  must  be  born  again. 
He  must  undergo  the  long  preparation,  the  trials, 
the  temptations,  the  conviction,  the  probationary 
period  —  in  a  word,  all  the  struggles  and  tribu- 
lations which  have  been  discussed  in  the  chapter 
on  ^'Conversion,"  ere  he  could  emerge  a  full- 
panoplied  Christian  knight,  with  his  weapons  of 
offence  and  defence  against  the  Evil  One  bright 
and  shining. 

Latterly  the  whole  purpose  and  objective  of 
religion  have  changed.  In  our  highly  socialized 
life,  men  no  longer  seek  individual  salvation  of 
this  sort.  This  is  the  day  of  what  may  be 
termed  "applied  religion,"  religion  adapted  and 
applied  to  social  uses  and  social  uplift.  Men 
are  still  conscious  of  inner  conflict  —  they  are 
even  more  acutely  conscious  of  it  as  society 
makes  increasing  demands  upon  them  —  but 
they  are  no  longer  inclined  to  attribute  this  con- 
flict to  their  having  been  "conceived  in  siil" 


BASIS     AND     OBJECTIVE     OF     RELIGION      l6l 

They  recognize  that  it  springs  from  conflict  of 
the  inner,  primitive  urge  with  the  mandates  of 
society,  that  it  is  maladjustment  to  their  en- 
vironment. As  they  become  enlightened,  they 
come  more  and  more  to  recognize  the  true  psy- 
chic basis  of  this  inner  conflict,  hence  they  seek 
more  and  more  to  sublimate  not  by  the  mystic 
process  of  conversion,  so  uncertain  in  its  results, 
not  through  attainment  of  salvation  through 
prayer  and  penance,  but  rather  through  the 
socialization  of  the  self.  The  old  selfish  stand- 
ards will  no  longer  avail;  the  Shibboleth  of 
modern  religion  is  not  "God  and  the  Self  in  the 
solitude,"  but  "God,  my  neighbor,  and  myself 
in  the  rush  and  turmoil  of  the  world,  the  world 
made  better  through  the  unselfish  Christ  spirit." 
No  longer  is  the  Christian  one  set  apart,  who, 
like  the  Priest  and  the  Levite  of  the  parable, 
gathers  up  the  skirts  of  his  robe  as  he  passes 
along  the  dusty  highway  of  life  lest  haply  he  be 
defiled.  He  is  one  who,  in  the  thick  of  the  fight, 
finds  strength  and  respite  through  looking  to  the 
spirit  that  inspires  all  good  and  great  deeds,  by 
whatever  name  he  may  call  it. 

Since  these  new  standards  have  been  raised 
(and  this  is  a  sad  commentary  on  systematized 
religion),  men  no  longer  look  to  the  Church  with 
its  outworn  dogmas  for  their  inspiration.  The 
older  doctrines  of  personal  salvation  and  vicari- 
ous atonement  do  not  appeal,  neither  do  they 
interest  the  modern  man.     They  seem  to  him  re- 


l62    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

mote,  alien  to  his  life  and  his  life-interests.  The 
workingman  goes  so  far  as  to  suspect  that  the 
Church  is  the  tool  of  capital  and  that  promises 
of  future  bliss  are  held  out  to  him  as  a  sop  to 
divert  his  attention  from  his  own  immediate  and 
pressing  social  and  economic  needs. 

Let  us  face  the  issue :  the  great  proletariat  and 
that  large  class  of  thinking  people  who  cast  their 
thought  in  modern  moulds,  and  who  feel  cribbed, 
cabined,  and  confined  by  the  old  dogmas, 
are  definitely  alienated  from  our  evangelical 
churches.  They  will  not  give  nor  profess  alle- 
giance to  a  religion  that  expresses  itself  in  terms 
remote  from  modern  life,  and  requires  that  every 
adherent  shall  first  have  had  some  mystic  experi- 
ence ere  he  join  the  company  of  the  elect. 

From  fifty  to  sixty  per  cent  of  the  American 
people  are  unchurched  and  will  have  naught  to 
do  with  churches.  What  does  this  imply?  The 
decline  of  religion?  The  death  of  idealism? 
Not  at  all.  Men  have  turned  their  idealism  in 
other  directions;  they  have  found  other  outlets 
for  religious  aspiration  and  the  application  of 
religious  principles  to  social  life.  Note  with 
what  avidity  men,  who  are  instinctively  gregari- 
ous, join  together  in  fraternal  organizations 
which  have  a  definite  idealistic  code  as  the  basis 
of  organization  and  what  might  almost  be  termed 
a  "creed"  to  which  their  members  subscribe.  Al- 
most without  exception,  these  orders  require 
belief  in  a  Supreme  Being;  they  endeavor  to 


BASIS     AND     OBJECTIVE     OF     RELIGION      163 

inculcate  altruistic  ideals.  "God  and  my  neigh- 
bor" might  be  the  slogan  of  these  orders.  They 
have  a  ritual  rich  in  symbolism,  which,  in  cer- 
tain cases  like  that  of  the  Masons,  has  been 
handed  down  from  early  times.  The  members 
of  these  fraternal  orders  are  open-minded  and 
open-hearted;  their  purse-strings  are  loosed  in 
behalf  of  every  good  cause.  That  all  of  their 
members  do  not  live  up  to  the  high  ethical  stand- 
ards of  these  orders  is  no  valid  argument  against 
the  efficacy  of  those  standards,  for  neither  do 
church  members.  The  point  is,  these  "get-to- 
gether societies"  satisfy  man's  social  needs,  they 
present  certain  high  standards  of  living,  they 
gratify  his  desire  for  a  rich  symbolism,  they  mul- 
tiply his  strength  through  cooperative  effort, 
they  give  him  an  outlet  for  his  altruistic  im- 
pulses —  thus  they  minister  to  his  essential 
needs. 

A  thousand  organizations  have  taken  over  the 
work  which  was  once  that  of  the  Church:  Civic 
Leagues,  social  settlements,  the  Red  Cross,  as- 
sociated charities,  community  service  of  various 
sorts.  The  fact  is,  the  Congregationalism  of  the 
Puritan  signed  its  own  death-warrant  by  defi- 
nitely narrowing  its  vision,  limiting  its  activities, 
and  attempting  to  eliminate  that  rich  symbol- 
ism which  is  the  very  foundation  of  religion.  It 
was  a  sporadic  growth,  the  outcome  and  expres- 
sion of  peculiar  conditions,  the  flowering  (if  such 
a  tough,  hard  growth  may  be  said  to  flower)  of 


l64  RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

a  peculiar  type  of  mind.  It  could  not  last;  it 
was  too  foreign  to  all  the  natural,  vital  impulses 
of  the  human  race.  It  sought  to  repress  sex- 
instinct.  Bare  of  ritual,  it  sought  to  kill  man's 
social  needs,  repress  his  strongest  instincts:  the 
desire  for  love,  amusement,  art,  literature. 
It  sought  to  still  the  music  of  life.  It  began 
as  a  definite  reaction  against  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  Anglicanism.  Seeking  to  re- 
press natural  and  wholesome  instincts,  it  was  un- 
natural, it  could  not  live. 

Behold,  then,  how  time  has  vindicated  the 
older,  more  highly  symbolized  types  of  religion. 
The  sons  and  grandsons  of  men  of  Puritan  stock 
are  flocking  to  the  Episcopal  Church,  where 
their  inherent  need  of  symbolism,  rich  and  beau- 
tiful, is  satisfied.  In  the  same  way  the  Catholic 
Churches,  Greek  and  Roman,  satisfy  this  need. 
But  do  these  churches  not  lose  their  adherents? 
Yes,  because  the  enlightened  man  of  the  twenti- 
eth century  has  discovered  that  his  inner  con- 
flict, his  ''sense  of  sin,"  is  not  necessarily  of  reli- 
gious origin,  at  least  not  in  the  accepted  sense  of 
that  term.  He  holds  that  this  conflict  is  not  due 
to  his  alienation  from  God,  but  that  it  is  failure 
to  adapt  himself  to  his  environment,  due  to  some 
fundamental  nervous  trouble  that  requires  the 
offices  of  the  neurologist  rather  than  the  clergy- 
man. As  we  have  already  noted,  while  religion 
may  be  of  assistance  in  stilling  the  unconscious 
inner  conflict,  religious  doubt,  alienation  from 


BASIS     AND     OBJECTIVE     OF     RELIGION        165 

God,  are  not  the  fundamental  cause.  They  are 
rather  symptoms  of  some  deep-rooted  nervous 
ailment.  Again,  this  conflict  is  in  reality  inci- 
dent to  our  evolution,  and  arises,  partly  at  least, 
from  the  conflict  of  the  primitive  Unconscious 
with  the  moral  code  which  the  human  race  has 
built  up  in  its  efforts  to  put  off  the  primitive  and 
assume  the  ethical. 

In  the  light  of  modern  research,  we  may  con- 
clude that  this  ethical  code  is  not  a  product  of 
revelation  but  of  evolution.  If  certain  prac- 
tices are  conducive  to  the  preservation  and  per- 
petuation of  the  race,  those  practices  are  moral; 
if  they  are  conducive  to  its  destruction,  they  are 
immoral.  No  table  of  laws  has  been  given  on 
any  Sinai  to  a  waiting  Moses.  The  only  Torah 
we  know  is  the  Torah  wrought  out  of  human  ex- 
perience with  blood  and  tears.  In  the  light  of 
modern  knowledge,  the  old  mandates  are  not 
compelling;  there  has  indeed  been  a  "new  dis- 
pensation," and  the  pronouncements  from  a 
thousand  pulpits,  in  so  far  as  they  are  built  upon 
old  dogmas,  outworn  theories  of  life  no  longer 
tenable,  have  not  the  old  prophetic  authority. 

While  we  retain  the  rich  symbolism  of  older 
religions,  much  of  the  myth  that  clung  about 
religious  dogma  until  recent  times  has  gone  by 
the  board.  Modern  science  has  given  the  lie  to 
the  primitive  creation  story  of  Judaism,  the 
story  of  a  universal  flood,  and  similar  myths  and 
primitive  cosmology.    They  have  been  relegated 


l66   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

to  the  primeval  abyss  whence  they  rose:  the 
abyss  of  primitive  sex-life.  Interesting  as  folk- 
lore, valuable  as  halting-places  on  our  way  to  a 
higher  plane  of  being,  they  have  served  their 
purpose  and  can  no  longer  exert  compelling  force 
in  the  regulation  and  conduct  of  human  life. 

Not  in  wonders  and  signs,  not  in  revelations 
made  at  some  far-distant  day  to  specially  fa- 
vored prophets  and  handed  down  to  succeeding 
generations  as  a  body  of  truth  valid  for  all  times, 
nor  in  the  morbid  and  sickly  doctrines  of  pro- 
fessional theologians  (themselves  the  victims  of 
vicious  complexes),  breathing  miasmatic  vapors 
—  not  in  these  revelations  and  doctrines  does  the 
modern  man  find  true  religion.  He  finds  it 
rather  in  the  heart  that  goes  out  to  other  hearts 
in  human  sympathy,  in  the  strong,  sturdy, 
healthy  spirit  that  finds  good  everywhere  and 
where  it  finds  evil,  stays  not  to  repine  or  ex- 
coriate, but  puts  forth  honest  determined  effort 
to  eliminate  the  evil  and  conserve  and  increase 
the  good. 

Finally,  how  may  the  Church  save  itself?  If 
there  is  any  truth  in  my  preceding  remarks,  we 
have  already  been  pointed  the  way. 

It  must  first  of  all  recognize  the  true  nature 
and  mechanism  of  conversion.  It  must  recog- 
nize that  the  conviction  of  sin  is  due  not  to  a 
primal  fall,  but  to  man's  unconscious  motivation 
and  his  unconscious  inner  conflicts.  Once  it  has 
recognized  the  nature  of  these  conflicts,  it  must 


BASIS     AND     OBJECTIVE     OF     RELIGION       167 

make  the  conversion  a  complete,  scientific, 
psychic  process  of  regeneration,  leaving  no  stone 
unturned  in  the  endeavor  to  penetrate  to  the 
roots  of  the  psychic  disturbance.  It  must  cease 
to  preach  a  gospel  of  repression  or  inculcate  false 
ideas  of  sex  and  its  functions;  it  must  be  more 
like  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  a  gospel  of  expression 
and  freedom,  rather  than  the  gospel  of  Paul,  a 
gospel  of  severe  repression.  And  it  must  recog- 
nize that  man  is  normally  a  social  being  and 
that  he  cannot  become  an  ascetic  religious  saint 
without  suffering  severe  psychic  trauma.  The 
Church  must  get  more  in  touch  with  the  world 
and  its  varied  social  problems,  must  face  present 
issues,  come  directly  into  contact  with  contem- 
porary life  and  seek  to  solve  contemporary  prob- 
lems. Thus  it  may  regain  its  ancient  place  of 
esteem  in  the  world. 

Some  religious  sects  to-day,  by  way  of  getting 
in  touch  with  contemporary  life  and  the  allevia- 
tion of  its  ills,  have  turned  to  the  healing  art  as 
a  means  of  contact  and  a  method  of  regenera- 
tion. We  shall  discuss  these  in  a  succeeding 
chapter. 


XI.  METHODS  OF  MENTAL  AND 
RELIGIOUS  HEALING 

THERE  is  scarcely  a  functional  disturbance 
or  organic  disorder  known  to  medical 
science  which  is  not  successfully  simulated  by 
some  hysteria.  "In  hysteria,"  says  Dr.  I.  H. 
Coriat  {Abnormal  Psychology,  2d  Ed.,  page 
299),  "we  are  dealing  with  a  world  in  itself. 
It  is  the  most  protean  of  all  nervous  diseases,  its 
symptoms  are  multitudinous  and  it  can  simulate 
many  functional  and  indeed  some  organic  dis- 
eases." Hallucinations,  abnormal  motor  activi- 
ties such  as  compulsive  movements  of  the  limbs, 
twitchings,  tics,  and  a  long  list  of  ailments  too 
numerous  to  mention  have  been  diagnosed  as 
hysterical  affections.  As  Pfister  says,  the  phy- 
sician gives  himself  needless  trouble  in  classify- 
ing hysterical  symptoms,  as  a  given  train  of 
symptoms  may  have  a  variety  of  causes.  From  a 
perusal  of  the  literature  extant  upon  the  subject, 
we  must  conclude  that  "hysteria"  is  a  convenient 
term  for  a  great  variety  of  nervous  ailments 
manifested  in  hallucinatory  activities,  abnormal 
motor  activities,  or  functional  disturbances. 

A  woman  patient  was  apparently  suffering 
from  a  tumor;  the  swelling  could  be  felt,  it  was 

168 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING      169 

indeed  pronounced  and  the  pain  severe.  She 
was  anaesthetized  preparatory  to  operating 
when,  behold!  as  the  ether  took  effect,  the  swell- 
ing disappeared  and  the  tumor  vanished !  What 
was  the  explanation?  It  was  an  hysterical 
tumor.  She  had  heard  or  read  of  a  tumor, 
or  perhaps  had  been  intimately  associated  with 
some  one  who  had  a  tumor,  and  she  was 
imitating  it.  She  was,  in  a  word,  playing  a 
little  unconscious  drama.  Her  fears  had  been 
aroused,  fear  created  a  condition  of  the  Un- 
conscious that  caused  her  fears  to  be  realized 
without  organic  basis,  and  the  phantom  tumor 
was  the  result. 

It  is  a  standing  joke  that  a  medical  student  in 
his  first  year  will  suffer  from  all  the  symptoms 
he  reads  about. 

Recently  a  case  of  phantom  pregnancy  was 
brought  to  my  attention  by  an  obstetric  special- 
ist. The  patient  had  long  desired  to  bear  a 
child.  Day  and  night  this  desire  was  the  focus 
of  her  attention  and  her  desire.  After  a  time, 
symptoms  of  pregnancy  began  to  appear. 
When  at  length  she  was  taken  to  the  hospital 
for  her  delivery,  she  had  all  the  symptoms  of 
advanced  pregnancy,  but  there  was  no  child! 
It  was  well-nigh  impossible  to  convince  the 
patient  that  she  was  not  parturient,  so  strong 
was  her  conviction. 

Hysteria  will  simulate  all  known  cardiac  diffi- 
culties, from  slight  palpitation  to  angina  pec- 


170   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

toris;  it  will  ape  disease  of  the  respiratory  tract 
from  a  simple  dyspnoea  to  asthma.  There  are 
forms  without  number  of  hysterical  blindness, 
hysterical  paralysis,  deafness,  aphasia,  amnesia, 
hyperaesthesia,  anaesthesia,  and  the  like,  which 
is  simply  to  say  that  no  one  ever  can  predict 
what  form  a  hysteria  will  take.  These  hysteri- 
cal disturbances  are  far  more  frequent  than  the 
real  functional  or  organic  troubles  which  they 
imitate.  If  it  were  not  for  the  etiology  of  these 
cases,  they  might  easily  be  mistaken  by  the  most 
skilled  physician  for  the  disorders  they  simu- 
late. 

It  will  readily  be  seen  what  a  fruitful  field  the 
hysterias  present  for  the  unscrupulous  medical 
practitioner,  the  quack  with  his  nostrums  of 
burnt  sugar  and  water,  and  likewise  to  mental 
healers  of  all  shades  of  intelligence  and  all  de- 
grees of  efficiency.  In  the  field  of  mental  heal- 
ing, which  aims  to  heal  all  disease,  but  which 
affects  only  the  hysterias  we  find:  mind  healing, 
faith  healing,  mental  science  so-called,  spiritual 
healing,  the  laying  on  of  hands.  New  Thought, 
Christian  Science,  Divine  Science,  in  short,  all 
those  forms  of  healing  which  operate  through 
suggestion.  That  they  accomplish  much  good  is 
beyond  question.  For  the  most  part  these  heal- 
ers are  not  aware  of  the  mechanism  and  technic 
of  their  healing,  hence  their  results  are  uneven 
and  uncertain. 

Mind  healing,  mental  science,  or  whatever 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       I7I 

system  attempts  to  heal  without  aid  of  the  Di- 
vine, seeks  to  cure  physical  ills  by  the  superior 
action  of  mind  over  matter.  All  bodily  ills,  so 
these  healers  claim,  will  yield  to  the  paramount 
power  of  mind,  which  is  able  to  control  diseased 
matter  and  bring  it  to  a  state  of  health.  Faith 
healing  and  the  laying  on  of  hands  aim  to  heal 
by  the  same  process  by  which  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  are  said  to  have  performed  miracles  of 
healing,  that  is  through  the  omnipotent  power  of 
God  to  heal  all  diseases.  The  patient  is  ex- 
horted to  have  faith  in  the  power  of  the  Divine 
to  cure  all  ills.  Spiritualist  healers  do  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  so  far  as  I  know,  claim  to  cure 
all  ills.  There  are  certain  ills  due  as  they  say 
to  "obsession,"  this  term  being  used  not  in  the 
scientific,  psychologcial  sense  of  an  obsessing 
idea,  but  in  the  sense  of  demon  or  evil  spirit 
possession.  These  spirits,  mischievous  "ele- 
mentals,"  evil  spirits,  or  even  the  spirits  of  de- 
parted good  men  strive  to  get  back  into  the  phy- 
sical world  for  the  sake  of  renewed  physical  en- 
joyments by  inhabiting  the  bodies  of  the  living. 
This  belief  has  a  counterpart  in  the  horrid 
superstition  which  pervades  the  lower  Danube 
region  that  there  are  "vampires"  or  "un-dead," 
who  seek  to  inhabit  living  bodies  or  remain  "un- 
dead"  by  sucking  human  blood.  Cases  of 
"spirit  obsession"  are  cured  by  exorcism.  Chris- 
tian Science  and  New  Thought  are  closely 
allied.     Christian  Science,  a  pantheistic,  ideal- 


172    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

istic  (in  the  philosophical  sense)  system  of 
thought,  ignores  the  reality  of  matter.  It  de- 
clares all  mortal  ills  as  unreal,  they  are  "errors," 
they  are  null  and  void,  they  are  manifestations 
of  the  Old  Adam  in  man,  or  mortal  mind.  If 
they  are  pronounced  unreal  with  sufficient  em- 
phasis, they  disappear  into  the  limbo  whence 
they  emanated.  New  Thought  declares  that  all 
is  good,  that  man  is  essentially  one  with  God 
(compare  Mysticism),  and  therefore  evil  has  no 
real  part  in  his  existence. 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  methods  of 
healing  through  the  precious  relics  of  saints. 
Lourdes,  so  realistically  described  by  Zola  in  his 
novel  of  that  name,  has  long  been  famous  for  its 
faith  cures.  Pilgrims  journey  to  Assisi,  to  leave 
their  crutches  and  their  physical  ills  near  the 
shrine  of  the  good  St.  Francis.  St.  Anne  de 
Beaupre  in  Quebec  is  another  famous  shrine. 

The  so-called  laying-on  of  hands  has  had  a 
marked  recrudescence  in  our  day.  A  British 
Churchman  has  been  going  the  rounds  healing 
disease  by  this  method. 

I  am  frequently  asked  whether  I  consider  that 
such  methods  of  healing  are  effective;  and  I 
reply,  "Yes,  tremendously  effective!"  But 
how  do  they  perform  miracles  of  healing? 
Whatever  form  these  methods  may  take,  they  all 
depend  upon  one  thing  for  their  efficacy:  the 
power  of  suggestion.  The  hysteric  is  notably 
suggestible,  suggestion  being  at  the  root  of  his 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING      173 

disease.  He  is  peculiarly  amenable  to  these 
methods  of  treatment.  When,  as  we  have  seen, 
his  illness  apes  a  functional  or  organic  physical 
disturbance,  the  power  of  suggestion,  if  strong 
enough  and  applied  with  sufficient  force  over  an 
extended  period,  may  be  sufficient  to  cure  it. 

We  hear  of  people,  bed-ridden  for  years,  with 
apparent  organic  disease  of  the  spinal  cord  who, 
in  case  of  fire,  have  sprung  from  their  beds  and 
walked  out  of  the  house.  These  cases  must 
undoubtedly  be  hysterics,  for  if  there  is  real 
disintegration  of  the  motor  nerves,  locomotion 
is  impossible.  In  the  same  way  the  great  crowds 
who  flock  to  Lourdes,  St.  Anne  de  Beaupre,  and 
Assisi  are  full  of  hysterics;  these  are  the  cases 
which  are  cured  and  are  the  ones  of  which  we 
hear.  The  failures  do  not  go  on  record.  A 
great  many  cases  can  not  be  reached  at  all  by 
psychic  methods  of  healing. 

Although  certain  of  the  practitioners  men- 
tioned, notably  the  Christian  Scientist,  declare 
that  faith  is  not  necessary  in  order  to  effect  a 
cure;  it  is  likely  inasmuch  as  these  methods 
work  through  the  power  of  suggestion,  that  faith 
is  requisite.  They  claim  to  heal  by  the  same 
power  by  which  Jesus  healed,  and  it  is  related  of 
him  that  he  could  perform  no  miracles  of  healing 
in  his  own  province  because  they  had  no  faith. 

Many  of  these  cures,  while  they  are  genuine 
cures,  are  not  permanent.  When  the  patient's 
faith  fails,  or  through  any  means  the  power  of 


174  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

suggestion  is  weakened,  the  patient  may  relapse 
into  his  old  condition  and  be  as  bad  as  before. 
It  may  be  averred  of  most  of  these  methods  that 
they  add  another  mental  resistance  to  the  mind 
of  a  patient  already  suffering  from  too  much 
resistance  (these  resistances  are  the  mechanism 
by  which  his  hysterical  trouble  is  caused) .  They 
may  seem  to  still  old  conflicts,  but  in  many  cases 
they  induce  new  ones,  hence  their  effect  is  likely 
to  be  temporary. 

The  question  is  often  asked  whether  methods 
of  suggestive  treatment  alleviate  or  cure  real 
physical  illness,  and  the  reply  is  "Yes,  in  some 
cases."  The  physician  tells  us  that  we  have 
a  certain  power  of  resistance  to  disease  when  in  a 
good  physical  state  (the  term  "resistance"  is 
here  used  not  in  the  psycho-analytic  sense,  but  in 
a  physical  sense),  that  constitutionally  we  can 
resist  the  onslaught  of  certain  diseases  but  have 
low  powers  of  resistance  against  certain  others. 
Worry,  anxiety,  a  bad  mental  state,  emotional 
disturbance,  lower  our  powers  of  resistance.  If 
the  patient's  mind  can  be  put  at  ease,  his  power 
of  physical  resistance  is  increased,  and  his 
chances  for  recovery  are  greater.  We  are  all 
aware  that  when  we  suffer  intense  pain,  a  bad 
toothache  or  headache  for  instance,  if  our  atten- 
tion is  distracted,  we  may  forget  the  pain  for 
a  time.  Methods  of  mental  healing  help  to  dis- 
tract the  patient's  attention  from  his  disabilities 
and  pains,  they  give  him  peace  of  mind  by  con- 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       175 

vincing  him  that  he  will  recover,  and  they  are 
thus  of  real  benefit.  They  help  to  divorce  his 
consciousness,  which  has  been  dwelling  upon  his 
pain,  from  that  pain  and  thus  minimize  it.  A 
war  correspondent,  writing  from  Salonika,  states 
that  he  saw  an  Indian  soldier  with  his  leg  shot 
off,  calmly  smoking  a  cigarette  by  the  wayside 
and  seeming  to  suffer  no  pain.  This  may  have 
been  due  to  the  natural  anaesthesia  which  often 
follows  in  such  cases,  or  it  may  be,  as  the  cor- 
respondent suggests,  that  these  Orientals  have 
some  means  by  which  they  can  shut  off  pain 
from  consciousness.  This  would  seem  to  be 
very  like  the  mechanism  of  hysteria  which  makes 
the  patient  "forget"  an  arm  or  a  leg  and  causes 
local  anaesthesia  and  paralysis,  except  that  in 
the  soldier's  case  the  forgetting  was  voluntary 
and  intentional,  whereas  with  the  hysteric  it  is 
involuntary  and  unconscious  forgetting. 

I  must,  however,  append  this  statement:  pain 
is  the  distress  signal  of  disease  and  it  may  be 
a  dangerous  practice  to  ignore  it  in  this  fashion, 
for  the  physical  disintegration  may  go  on  until 
it  is  too  late  for  proper  medical  or  surgical  at- 
tention to  have  effect.  The  war  correspondent 
mentioned  above,  when  he  returned  after  some 
hours,  reports  that  he  found  the  Indian  soldier 
dead. 

If  mind  or  faith  healer  fail  to  cure  cases  of 
hysteria,  is  there  no  hope  for  the  sufferer? 
There  are  modem  methods  of  psychotherapy 


176   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

which  diagnose  the  case  scientifically,  follow  a 
scientific  procedure,  and  relieve  and  in  many 
cases  completely  cure  these  troubles.  They 
make  no  claim  to  employ  supernatural  aid  in 
their  methods,  nor  to  perform  miraculous  cures. 
Nevertheless  their  record  of  cures  is  little  short 
of  marvelous. 

Among  these  methods  is  hypnosis.  It  has 
been  used  with  great  success.  The  Emmanuel 
Movement  in  Boston  used  to  employ  it  exten- 
sively in  medical  practice.  Nevertheless,  its  re- 
sults, like  those  of  all  suggestive  methods,  are 
uncertain.  Undoubtedly  its  healing  powers 
have  been  exaggerated  by  those  who  employ  it 
professionally.  Dr.  Worcester  (Religion  and 
Medicine,  page  41)  states  that  "Charcot  (the 
eminent  French  hypnotist)  and  his  disciples  con- 
tented themselves  with  hypnotizing  a  dozen  or 
fifteen  hysterical  young  women,  and  from  these 
limited  observations  they  have  drawn  their 
limited  conclusions.  According  to  their  view 
only  hysterical  patients  can  be  hypnotized."  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  between  ninety  and  ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  all  peoples  on  whom  the  experi- 
ment has  been  tried  can  be  influenced  hypnoti- 
cally. The  hypnotic  treatment  is  open  to  the 
same  objection  as  other  suggestive  treatments: 
it  adds  another  resistance  but  does  not  reach 
the  fundamental  unconscious  cause  of  the 
trouble ;  its  effects  are  therefore  often  only  tem- 
porary.    It  is  significant  that  the  Emmanuel 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       I77 

Movement  has  definitely  given  up  hypnosis  in 
favor  of  a  psycho-analytic  procedure  and  re- 
educational  methods^  with  signal  success.  An 
eminent  neurologist  of  wide  experience  tells  me 
that  some  of  his  patients  who  had  been  treated 
hypnotically  by  himself  or  other  practitioners 
have  come  to  him  since  for  psycho-analytic  treat- 
ment, when  the  cure,  which  was  but  temporary 
before,  becomes  permanent. 

Before  discussing  in  detail  this  method,  it  is 
necessary  to  understand  Freud's  theory  of  hys- 

^  The  Emmanuel  Movement  was  begun  in  1906,  in  Emmanuel 
Church,  Boston,  after  it  was  definitely  ascertained  that  such  a 
project  would  meet  with  the  approval  of  neurologists.  Its  aim 
was  to  treat  nervous  ills  by  modern  methods  of  psycho-thera- 
peutics. Dr.  James  J.  Putnam  of  Harvard  gave  the  first  ad- 
dress. The  aim  was  not  to  treat  physical  disorders  by 
psycho-therapeutic  methods,  but,  in  co-operation  with  physi- 
cians, to  treat  various  functional  nervous  disorders.  Dr. 
Worcester  says  in  his  Introduction  to  Religion  and  Medicine, 
"In  the  treatment  of  functional  nervous  disorders  we  make  free 
use  of  moral  and  psychical  agencies,  but  we  do  not  believe  in 
overtaxing  these  valuable  aids  by  expecting  the  mind  to  attain 
results  which  can  be  effected  more  easily  through  physical  in- 
strumentalities." The  movement  has  had  signal  success  in  the 
treatment  of  hysterias  and  neuroses,  alcoholism  (which  is  a 
neurosis),  and  other  functional  nervous  disorders.  Hypnosis  was 
at  first  used,  the  healers  using  the  methods  of  Charcot.  Of  late 
years,  however,  Freud  has  pointed  the  way  to  new  methods  of 
psycho-therapy  and  hypnosis  has  been  abandoned.  "God  cures 
by  many  means,"  says  Dr.  Worcester;  this  movement  is  there- 
fore not  to  be  confounded  with  mind  or  faith  healing  methods ; 
as  the  procedure  in  the  Emmanuel  Movement  is  soundly  scien- 
tific. Dr.  I.  H.  Coriat,  the  eminent  neurologist  of  Boston,  was 
associated  with  the  movement  for  some  time  and  wrote  certain 
chapters  of  Religion  and  Medicine. 


178   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

teria.  Authorities  are  in  general  agreement 
to-day  that  hysteria  is  really  a  species  of  forget- 
ting. The  hysteric  forgets  certain  painful  inci- 
dents, or  how  normally  to  use  an  arm  or  a  leg. 
Even  in  the  case  of  normal  persons,  the  memory 
of  painful  incidents  is  rapidly  pushed  out  of  con- 
sciousness. It  seems  likely,  from  what  we  know 
of  the  subject,  that  all  forgetting  in  both  normal 
and  abnormal  individuals  is  intentional.  Who 
has,  in  his  advanced  years,  looked  back  upon 
his  childhood  with  aught  but  pleasurable  remem- 
brances? The  disagreeable  incidents  are  for- 
gotten :  the  fright  in  the  dark  cellar,  the  thwart- 
ing of  infantile  desire,  the  quarrel  that  ended 
in  some  playmate's  depriving  one  of  a  beloved 
possession,  the  separation  from  father  or  mother 
for  awhile  that  resulted  in  intense  homesickness. 
When  we  look  back  upon  our  youthful  past,  the 
pleasures  loom  large,  the  troubles  dwindle.^  We 
know  that  the  names  of  beloved  places  and  per- 
sons are  readily  remembered  because  they  are 
lovingly  reviewed  from  time  to  time,  while 
memories  of  unpleasant  places  and  disagreeable 
persons  are  rapidly  pushed  out  of  consciousness. 
They  are,  however,  not  really  forgotten,  they  are 
merely  submerged  in  the  Unconscious,  whence 
they  emerge,  as  we  have  previously  seen,  not  as 
concepts  but  as  painful  emotions.  They  create 
bad  complexes.  Since  the  instigators  of  these 
emotionally  toned  complexes  are  forgotten,  these 

^  See  Pierre  Loti's  Romance  of  a  Child. 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       179 

complexes  may  carry  on  an  autonomous  exist- 
ence and  act  in  a  pathological  manner.  For- 
merly, hysterias  were  traced  to  psychic  trau- 
mata, or  injuries,  but  the  complex  may  be  built 
on  a  whole  train  of  incidents,  it  may  be  caused 
by  an  infantile  fixation,  where  no  history  of  defi- 
nite psychic  trauma  may  be  discovered.  At  any 
rate  when  conditions  are  right  and  there  is  the 
proper  stimulus,  the  emotions  that  constellate  in 
the  bad  complex,  emerge  and  play  a  little 
psychic  tragedy  of  their  own.  Hysterical 
phenomena  are  in  reality  little  dramas  which  the 
Unconscious  plays  over  and  over.  The  individ- 
ual is  not  aware  of  the  origin  of  the  drama,  for 
its  motivation  is  hidden  deep  within  the  Uncon- 
scious. 

As  Pfister  points  out,  the  hysteric  symptoms 
will  appear  whenever  circumstances  similar  to 
those  which  gave  rise  to  the  hysteria  recur. 
Then  the  Unconscious  says  in  effect,  "Now  it  is 
as  it  was  at  such  and  such  a  time,  when  the 
unpleasant  incident  occurred."  Thus  a  youth 
is  afraid  to  go  near  a  grave-yard  at  night  be- 
cause once  in  his  childhood  he  had  been  fright- 
ened in  such  a  place.  The  memory  of  the 
fright  and  the  attendant  circumstances  is 
submerged  in  the  Unconscious,  but  the  emotion 
persists.  (It  has  been  suggested  that  many  of 
our  instinctive  dislikes  go  back  to  racial  memo- 
ries which  have  survived  in  the  Unconscious 
from  earliest  times.     Thus  our  instinctive  ab- 


l80   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

horrence  of  snakes  may  be  a  survival  from  the 
time  when  our  arboreal  ancestors  were  safe  in 
their  leafy  retreats  from  all  enemies  except  the 
great  tree-climbing  snakes  that  still  exist  in 
tropical  forests.  On  the  other  hand,  our  abhor- 
rence of  snakes  may  have  quite  another  origin. 
See  Pfister,  Psycho-analytic  Method,  pp.  286- 
292.) 

It  was  discovered  by  Freud  and  his  associates 
that  when  the  hysteric  was  placed  in  a  state  of 
abstraction  in  which  he  could  observe  his  psy- 
chic processes  and  the  hysterical  symptoms  were 
strongly  brought  to  attention,  these  submerged 
memories  could  be  made  to  emerge  into  con- 
sciousness, that  the  patient  would  relive  that 
part  of  his  life  when  painful  incidents  occurred 
leading  to  the  hysteria,  with  all  the  "affect,"  or 
emotional  reaction  that  attended  these  incidents, 
and  that  once  this  was  done,  the  hysterical  symp- 
toms disappeared.  Hypnosis  was  at  first  util- 
ized to  tap  the  Unconscious,  but  later  this  was 
abandoned,  as  it  was  discovered  that  the  patient 
in  an  abstracted  state  could,  through  a  train  of 
associations,  bring  these  memories  into  con- 
sciousness without  its  aid.  The  element  of  sug- 
gestion, which  is  never  absent  from  hypnosis, 
was  thus  almost  entirely  eliminated,  and  the  pa- 
tient "abreacted,"  or  threw  off  the  painful  emo- 
tions after  he  had  learned  their  cause.  There 
were  certain  "resistances"  which  had  to  be 
broken    down    before    these    memories    could 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       l8l 

emerge.  When  this  was  accomplished,  the  pain- 
ful emotions  were  "transferred"  to  the  analyst. 
At  first  Freud  and  his  associates  attributed  the 
cure  solely  to  the  abreaction  (it  was  then  called 
the  "cathartic  method"  of  cure),  but  he  decided 
later  that  the  essential  things  were  breaking 
down  the  resistances  which  kept  the  painful 
memories  repressed,  and  transferring  the  emo- 
tions to  the  analyst. 

It  has  been  found  that  certain  hysterical  symp- 
toms will  arise  from  a  physically  morbid  condi- 
tion, that  the  physical  disablity  has  been  entirely 
cured,  but  the  hysterical  symptoms  persist  as 
automata,  or  independent  psychic  manifesta- 
tions which,  cut  off  from  consciousness,  go  on 
from  nervous  habit  living  an  emotional  life  of 
their  own.  I  have  already  cited  the  subject  who 
suffered  from  a  functional  cardiac  disorder  of 
which  he  was  entirely  cured,  so  that  no  diagnos- 
tician could  discover  the  faintest  trace  of  func- 
tional or  organic  cardiac  disorder.  Nevertheless, 
he  suffered  all  the  palpitation,  dyspnoea,  and 
nervous  fatigue  incident  to  the  original  difficulty. 
Christian  Science  treatments  were  of  no  avail, 
probably  because  he  had  no  faith  in  them.  As 
we  have  seen,  psycho-analysis  wrought  a  per- 
manent cure. 

The  psycho-analytic  method,  which  I  have 
just  described,  seems  from  extended  observation 
to  be  the  only  certain  and  permanent  method  of 
cure  for  hysterical  disorders.    With  other  math- 


l82    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

ods  of  healing,  the  symptoms  are  almost  sure 
to  return,  as  the  fundamental  thing,  namely 
the  unconscious  origin  of  the  difficulty,  has 
not  been  approached.  It  is  still  there,  ready 
to  break  forth  in  some  moment  of  physical  or 
psychic  depression,  in  all  its  original  violence. 
The  psycho-analytic  method,  however,  by  re- 
moving the  fundamental  cause,  works  a  perma- 
nent cure.  It  lays  claim  to  no  supernatural  aid, 
it  surrounds  itself  with  no  mystic  paraphernalia; 
it  is  a  definite,  technical,  scientific  procedure  for 
the  alleviation  and  cure  of  psychic  ills,  based 
upon  long  observation  and  keen  appraisal  of 
human  nature,  and  elaborated  by  a  keen  intelli- 
gence that  is  unwilling  to  pronounce  a  verdict 
until  there  is  an  overwhelming  amount  of  ac- 
cumulated evidence.  Freud  was  many  years 
elaborating  the  delicate  and  difficult  technique 
of  psycho-analysis.  It  is  not  entirely  new,  nor 
does  it  claim  to  be.  The  knowledge  gained 
through  the  more  classic  systems  of  psychology 
has  been  utilized  as  a  foundation  for  the  new 
psychology.  Freud  gives  full  credit  to  the  work 
of  his  predecessors.  Most  sober-minded  people 
fight  hard  against  accepting  Freud's  theories,  but 
it  is  significant  that  his  sharpest  critics  have 
never  put  those  theories  to  the  test.  Some  of 
his  strongest  opponents  have  been  won  over  after 
a  trial  of  his  methods.  I  myself  have  been  con- 
vinced of  the  correctness  of  his  theories  and 
procedure  only  after  minute  observations  of  their 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       183 

results  in  rendering  human  life  healthier  and 
happier  and  after  a  thorough  practical  test. 
The  contributions  of  the  more  intelligent  mind 
and  faith  healers  to  our  present  knowledge  of 
this  subject  are  by  no  means  slight.  They  have 
helped  to  prepare  the  way,  and  we  gratefully  ac- 
knowledge our  debt  to  them.  Psycho-analysis 
itself  is  still  in  its  infancy  and  its  methods  will 
doubtless  be  improved  as  time  goes  on. 

Logically,  this  chapter  should  end  at  this  point. 
There  are,  however,  certain  nervous  ills  so  de- 
structive and  devastating  to  human  happiness 
and  usefulness,  that  I  wish  to  discuss  these  a 
little  more  at  length,  more  especially  because  the 
readers  of  this  book  may  be  themselves  the  vic- 
tims of  these  ills.  Among  the  worst  of  the  neu- 
roses are  those  which  result  in  perverted  sexual- 
ity or  sexual  anaesthesia.  The  former  renders 
the  individual  desperately  unhappy  and  makes 
him  a  social  outcast  if  his  disability  be  dis- 
covered; the  latter  is  the  basis  of  so-called  ^'in- 
compatibility" and  the  cause  of  many  divorces. 
(See  Dr.  Coriat's  Abnormal  Psychology,  Second 
Edition,  page  4i4f.)  Methods  of  faith  and 
mind-healing  do  not  always  reach  these  dis- 
abilities, from  the  simple  fact  that  the  individual, 
believing  himself  thoroughly  abnormal,  consider- 
ing himself  the  victim  of  an  incurable  congenital 
malady,  and  looking  upon  himself  as  a  moral  and 
social  outcast,  seldom  reveals  the  true  state  of 
affairs  to  the  healer  nor  to  any  other  person 


l84  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

whose  respect  he  would  gain  and  keep.  The 
resistance  against  giving  up  his  secret  is  enor- 
mous; it  imposes  almost  insuperable  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  cure.  It  is  well  known  to  neurol- 
ogists who  have  employed  hypnosis  in  such 
cases  that  the  homo-eroticist  is  almost  impossible 
to  hypnotize  and  that  at  best  hypnosis  gives  but 
temporary  relief.  Like  faith  and  mind  healing, 
it  does  not  reach  the  fundamental  trouble. 
These  cases  are  most  successfully  treated  by 
psycho-analysis  and  the  individual,  freed  from 
the  repression  of  his  evil  complex  (in  this  case 
the  CEdipus-complex),  becomes  normal.  The 
anxiety  and  deep  depression  which  invariably 
accompany  such  disorders  disappear  and  he  goes 
about  his  work  a  free  man,  psychically  and  mor- 
ally, and  able  to  look  the  world  in  the  face. 

Again,  there  are  the  ills  called  ' 'nervous  break- 
down" or  "nervous  prostration,"  both  of  them 
convenient  loose  terms  to  cover  a  multitude  of 
ills  little  understood  until  very  recently.  Nearly 
all  nervous  ills,  from  the  slight  neurosis  which 
merely  lessens  the  individual's  efficiency,  to  the 
severe  psychoneurosis,  are  classified  under  one 
of  these  two  categories.  Thus  the  term  "ner- 
vous breakdown"  is  a  euphemism,  fast  becoming 
transparent  to  every  one,  for  men  dread  the  term 
"insanity"  as  they  dread  "consumption"  or 
"tuberculosis,"  preferring  to  say  "nervous  break- 
down" and  "lung  trouble." 

Ordinarily,    "nervous   breakdown"   means    a 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       185 

profound  nervous  depression  which  incapacitates 
the  individual  for  useful  work.  It  is  attributed 
to  a  variety  of  causes:  overwork,  nervous  strain, 
brain  fatigue,  and  the  like.  Clergymen,  social 
workers,  and  all  others,  including  physicians, 
whose  work  brings  them  in  contact  with  people 
in  abnormal  emotional,  mental,  or  physical 
states,  are  peculiarly  liable  to  it.  The  clergy- 
man, like  the  physician,  enters  the  home  where 
fatal  disease  has  set  its  seal  upon  the  brow  of 
a  father  or  mother,  or  where  a  dearly-loved  mem- 
ber of  the  family  has  just  passed  away.  He 
gives  generously  of  his  sympathy  and  his 
friendly  counsel.  Ere  he  is  aware,  he  finds  his 
energies  evaporating,  his  nervous  tone  lowered, 
as  he  thinks,  by  the  constant  drain  upon  his 
sympathies.  His  nights  begin  to  be  sleepless,  he 
loses  interest  in  his  work.  Finally,  he  has  what 
is  termed  a  "nervous  breakdown,"  and  is  sent 
away  to  a  rest-cure,  the  worst  possible  procedure 
in  such  cases!  Men  in  responsible  positions  in 
business  and  professional  life  have  these  "ner- 
vous breakdowns."  And  always  the  rest-cure  has 
been  prescribed. 

Now  these  "breakdowns"  are  not  at  all  what 
they  seem.  They  are  not  primarily  due  to  over- 
work or  fatigue  or  a  drain  upon  human  sympa- 
thies. They  arise  from  the  individual's  inability 
to  face  reality,  to  face  issues  and  work  out  his 
life-problem.  Whence  comes  this  inability? 
From   the   individual's   own   mental   conflicts, 


l86   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

which  in  turn  date  from  childhood  when  for 
some  reason  there  was  an  injurious  repression 
of  the  sexual  instinct.  The  sudden  demand 
made  upon  the  individual's  nervous  energy  is  but 
the  exciting  cause,  the  efficient  cause  is  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  injurious  complex.  Clergymen 
are  peculiarly  liable  to  such  breakdowns  on  ac- 
count of  the  severe  repression  which  is  a  part 
of  their  education.  In  fact,  such  repressions 
have  often  driven  men  into  the  ministry.  De- 
tractors have  called  the  clergy  the  "third  sex," 
implying  a  sexlessness  among  them.  This  in  the 
past  may  have  had  some  justification,  for  the 
older  type  of  cleric  took  only  too  well  to  heart 
the  lessons  of  the  neurotic  Paul  and  fought  the 
flesh  as  he  fought  the  devil.  We  have  already 
noted  how  repression  of  the  sex-instinct  results 
in  a  general  depression  of  physical  and  nervous 
energy.  We  have  seen  how  these  repressions 
with  their  evil  effects  are  caused  by  the  conflict 
of  the  inner  urge  with  the  moral  laws  laid  down 
by  society.  We,  the  people,  are  therefore 
largely  to  blame  if  the  clergyman  has  so  re- 
pressed all  his  normal  instincts  that  he  virtually 
becomes  a  sexless  being;  we  are  largely  to  blame 
if  he  is  the  victim  of  consequent  neuroses,  and 
suffers  nervous  breakdown.  For  we  have  set  up 
for  him  an  impossible  standard  of  sexlessness, 
and  required  that  he  live  up  to  it;  though  he 
himself  has  assisted  in  the  evil  work  by  striving 
to  pattern  his  life  on  that  of  the  neurotic  Paul. 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING        187 

Let  US  remember  that  even  of  Jesus  it  was  said, 
"He  was  a  man  of  like  passions  with  ourselves." 
If  the  clergyman  is  to  do  effective  work  in 
religious  and  social  fields,  he  must  be  above  all 
things  a  normal  man.  A  man  suffering  from 
repression  is  invariably  a  man  physically  and 
mentally  below  par;  he  can  not  be  an  energetic 
worker  for  religious  and  social  causes.  Let  us 
rather  require  that  the  clergyman  be  a  virile 
man,  with  sane  and  normal  instincts,  held  under 
the  control  of  his  will,  or  sublimated,  not  the  vic- 
tim of  evil  repressions  which  make  his  Uncon- 
scious a  battle-field  of  erotic  desire. 

Whether  the  celibacy  of  the  Catholic  and  the 
High  Anglican  clergy  is  on  the  whole  injurious, 
I  am  not  in  a  position  to  state.  I  have  known 
some  cases  where  it  was  obviously  so,  many 
others  where  the  good  man  had  obviously  sub- 
limated (that  is,  turned  the  energy  of  the  crav- 
ing to  social  uses)  and  was  entirely  free  from 
evil  repression.  There  are  thousands  of  men 
who  live  in  a  state  of  bachelorhood  in  secular 
life  without  any  evil  effects;  sexual  indulgence 
is  not  at  all  necessary  to  health  or  happiness; 
why  should  the  clergy  suffer  from  an  odium  from 
which  the  secular  man  is  free?  In  every  case, 
it  would  seem  to  depend  upon  the  particular 
background  of  the  individual:  his  heredity,  his 
early  family  life,  his  relation  to  his  parents  and 
other  members  of  his  family,  his  early  educa- 
tion, and  the  consequent  attitude  he  takes 
toward  life  in  general. 


l88   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Of  this  I  am  assured,  the  Catholic  confessional 
is  of  inestimable  benefit  in  the  assistance  it 
gives  the  individual  to  abreact  his  painful  emo- 
tions and  sublimate.  The  effect  of  confession, 
when  intelligently  handled,  is  very  like  that  of 
the  cathartic  method  which  was  the  beginning 
of  psycho-analysis.  A  sympathetic  priest  can 
draw  out  the  innermost  thoughts  of  the  confess- 
ant  and  assist  him  to  rid  his  mind  of  oppressing 
troubles.  I  know  of  at  least  one  case  where  the 
soil  was  fertile  for  the  development  of  a  homo- 
erotic  neurosis  (Ferenczi  prefers  the  term 
"homo-erotic"  to  the  term  "homo-sexual,"  since 
the  latter  implies  a  congenital  defect,  whereas  it 
is  really  an  acquired  neurosis),  but  where 
through  the  good  offices  of  the  confessional,  the 
individual  was  restored  to  normality.  This  was 
a  youth,  an  only  son,  petted  and  spoiled  by  an 
indulgent  mother,  as  an  only  child  is  so  likely 
to  be.  His  mother  was  young  enough  to  have 
preserved  much  of  her  youthful  charm  and 
beauty  and  was  the  son's  inseparable  companion, 
in  fact  these  two  seemed  to  need  no  other 
companionship.  His  father,  an  alcoholic,  a 
periodic  drinker,  who  would  stay  sober  for 
a  time  then  go  on  a  long  debauch,  was  the 
object  of  the  youth's  well-merited  hatred  since 
he  had  done  much  to  devastate  the  home 
and  the  happiness  of  his  family.  At  the  age 
of  sixteen,  the  boy  showed  decided  homo- 
erotic  tendencies,  with  other  well-known  symp- 


MENTAL     AND     RELIGIOUS     HEALING       189 

toms  such  as  anxiety  states,  an  introverted 
personality,  and  the  Hke,  but  as  he  approached 
manhood  he  outgrew  these  tendencies,  fell  in 
love  with  a  beautiful  girl  of  about  his  own  age, 
married  and  lived  a  happy  married  life.  A  fine 
boy  came  to  bless  their  union.  I  cannot  defi- 
nitely prove  that  it  was  the  confessional  that 
freed  this  boy  from  his  bad  complex,  as  it  is  a 
well-ascertained  fact  that  many  individuals  go 
through  a  homo-erotic  period  (see  Romaine 
Rolland's  Jean  Christophe,)  and  finally  break 
away  from  the  infantile  fixation  that  causes  the 
trouble  and  become  entirely  normal  without  ad- 
ventitious aid.  From  what  I  know  of  such  fixa- 
tions, however,  I  think  it  far  more  likely  that 
when  they  persist  through  the  adolescent  period 
they  are  likely  to  become  permanent  and  then 
only  some  psycho-therapeutic  method  will  re- 
lieve or  cure  the  case.  In  the  above  case,  I 
attribute  the  cure  to  the  catharsis  furnished  by 
the  confessional,  since  the  youth  w^as  a  devout 
Catholic  and  went  frequently  to  confession,  from 
which  he  would  return  with  care-free  step  and 
happy  smile.  It  would  be  well  worth  the  while 
of  the  good  fathers  who  have  youth  in  charge 
to  look  into  the  causes  and  mechanism  of  the 
neuroses,  inasmuch  as  it  would  give  them  deeper 
insight  into  the  characteristic  struggles  of  youth 
during  the  storm  and  stress  of  adolescence  and 
would  enable  them  to  confer  untold  benefits  in 
the  intimacy  of  the  confessional  through  sympa- 


igO   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

thetic  understanding.  To  gain  this,  the  confes- 
sor himself  would  of  course  have  to  be  free  from 
introversion. 

In  closing,  let  me  say  that  we  must  give  all 
those  psychotherapeutic  methods  which  come 
under  the  head  of  faith  or  mind  cure,  their  due, 
and  recognize  that  in  many  cases  they  help  the 
neurotic  to  sublimate  and  thus  turn  his  libido 
to  social  ends. 


XII.    THE   RELIGIOUS   PROBLEM   IN 
EDUCATION 

WE  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapters 
how  the  rehgious  problem  in  its  varied 
aspects  is  as  old  as  the  human  race ;  how  in  prim- 
itive times  it  involved  the  propitiation  of  adverse 
forces  which  the  individual  felt  might  rise  up  and 
destroy  him ;  how  in  a  more  advanced  state  of  cul- 
ture the  problem  became  one  of  the  resolution  of 
inner  conflicts;  and  that  in  either  case  it  is  a 
problem  of  the  individual's  perfect  adjustment 
to  his  environment.  In  the  review  of  this  many- 
sided  problem,  we  have  seen  the  important  role 
which  the  Unconscious  plays  in  its  solution. 
We  have  seen  something  of  the  motivation  of 
human  life,  with  its  mixed  egotistic  and  altruis- 
tic motives  and  have  noted  that  there  is  free- 
will in  human  life,  but  that  individual  decisions 
are  governed  largely  by  the  Unconscious.  In 
our  discussion  of  the  nature  and  effect  of 
the  Unconscious,  we  have  noted  how  it  affects 
the  problem  of  evil,  which  is  really  the 
problem  of  the  individual's  attitude  toward 
life  and  the  effective  use  of  his  life  forces. 
We  have  discussed  certain  normal  and  patho- 
logical religious  types:  Sadistic,  Masochistic, 
Mystic,  and  the  Neurotic  type  that  seeks  in 

IQI 


192    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

fantastic  systems  satisfactions  and  stimuli  for 
a  jaded  emotional  appetite.  We  have  noted  the 
psychological  basis  of  conversion.  But  we  have 
seen  that  there  is  a  changing  basis  of  religion 
which  involves  something  wider  than  individual 
satisfactions  or  adjustment,  that  the  focal  points 
are  shifting  in  this  twentieth  century,  and  that 
while  much  of  the  content  and  many  of  the 
phenomena  of  older  systems  may  be  considered 
morbid,  unwholesome,  and  abnormal,  involving 
as  they  do  a  view  of  the  natural  life  as  totally 
depraved,  we  are  getting  to  a  highly  socialized 
type  of  religon  which  exemplifies  in  the  broadest 
sense  love  for  our  neighbor.  Finally,  we  con- 
sidered how  many  modern  religious  systems  have 
turned  to  the  healing  of  physical  and  psychic 
ills  as  a  practical  application  of  religion  to  mod- 
ern life  and  have  noted  what  success  has  at- 
tended their  efforts  in  this  direction. 

The  various  discussions  may  seem  to  have 
carried  us  far  afield,  nevertheless  these  various 
questions  are  but  ramifications  of  the  religious 
problem  and  all  have  had  to  do  with  that  per- 
fect adjustment  to  environment  without  which 
no  one  can  be  said  to  be  living  a  happy  and 
useful  life.  We  have  definitely  turned  aside 
from  the  philosophical  and  metaphysical  aspects 
of  the  problem,  otherwise  we  should  have  been 
carried  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book.  More- 
over, these  have  been  ably  and  exhaustively  dis- 
cussed by  many  modern  thinkers. 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       193 

The  final  goal  of  religion  is  social  unity.  Even 
those  writers  who  oppose  the  view  that  ethics 
and  religion  represent  the  struggle  of  the  human 
race  toward  social  unity  and  declare  that  religion 
has  uses  aside  from,  or  beyond,  social  ends,  are 
compelled  to  give  weight  to  the  social  influences 
that  determine  the  course  of  human  life  through 
the  pressure  of  public  opinion  and  give  definite 
direction  to  the  individual  life.  Thus,  Rudolf 
Eucken  (Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  p. 
369)  declares:  "A  system  of  human  culture 
founded  upon  the  mere  individual  and  his 
subjective  condition  (is)  unsatisfactory.  .  .  . 
Heredity,  environment,  and  education  not  only 
determine  him  in  innumerable  ways,  but  seem  to 
be  entirely  responsible  for  him;  they  spin  such 
a  fine  web  around  him  that  neither  cunning  nor 
force  can  break  through.  It  is  certain  that  this 
determination  reaches  into  that  inner  soul  which 
individualism  holds  to  be  completely  free  of 
outward  influences.  .  .  .  For  let  the  individ- 
ualist assert  himself  against  the  world  as  much 
as  he  likes  and  seem  completely  to  separate  him- 
self from  it,  he  still  remains  overshadowed  and 
overpoweringly  influenced  by  the  world  and  sub- 
ject to  its  limitations." 

There  is  therefore  no  cogent  reason  why  we 
should  withdraw  from  our  original  position  nor 
find  just  cause  to  restate  the  religious  problem 
in  other  than  social  terms;  especially,  as  we 
have  given  due  weight  to  individual  urge  as  a 


194  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

potent  unconscious  factor  in  molding  human  life 
and  have  recognized  that  social  pressure,  al- 
though the  conflicts  it  raises  with  the  Uncon- 
scious in  the  imposition  of  its  laws  may  create 
grave  psychic  disturbance,  is  the  potent  force 
which  progressively  raises  the  human  spirit  to 
higher  moral  and  religious  levels.  By  these  two 
forces  the  individual  is  molded,  and  while  the 
conflict  between  them  makes  his  life  a  fierce 
battle-ground  in  which  he  may  acknowledge  de- 
feat by  flight  from  reality  into  a  neurosis,  they 
likewise  force  him  to  sublimation  by  which  his 
energy  is  turned  to  social  ends  and  finds  ex- 
pression in  art,  music,  literature,  and  scientific 
pursuits.  Thwarted  in  one  direction,  his  energy 
finds  outlet  in  another,  sometimes  the  fantastic 
and  futile  imagery  of  hysteria,  but  quite  as  often 
by  sublimation  in  some  valuable  social  work 
which  helps  the  progress  of  mankind. 

To  tell  how  the  individual  may  be  saved  from 
a  deadening  and  soul-destroying  neurosis  in  the 
progress  of  this  struggle  and  sublimate  and  de- 
vote his  life  to  social  altruistic  ends,  is  the  object 
of  the  present  chapter. 

I.  The  Method  and  Effect  of  Psycho-analysis 

Psycho-analysis,  as  its  name  implies,  is  an 
"analysis  of  the  psyche,"  or  personality.  It  is 
a  definite  therapeutic  means  of  tapping  the  Un- 
conscious and  bringing  unconscious  mental  pro- 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       IQS 

cesses  (complexes)  up  into  the  light  of  conscious- 
ness and  thus  destroying  their  power  to  harm. 
We  have  noted  the  nature  and  characteristics  of 
the  complex.  Pyscho-analysis,  as  we  have  like- 
wise noted,  breaks  up  the  vicious  complex,  and 
remolds  it  for  social  ends. 

Freud's  original  procedure  in  beginning  an 
analysis  was  to  place  the  subject  in  a  reclining 
position  on  a  couch,  where  he  could  be  in  a  state 
of  perfect  physical  relaxation  that  enabled  his 
mind  to  get  into  that  abstracted,  passive  condi- 
tion where  he  could  observe  his  psychic  processes 
unhindered  by  external  stimuli.  Pfister  and  oth- 
ers regard  this  as  not  altogether  good,  since  it  in- 
duces a  feeling  of  helplessness  in  the  subject  and 
may  give  rise  to  erotic  fantasies.  Pfister  places 
the  subject  in  an  easy  chair  in  a  semi-recumbent 
position  and  is  himself  in  perfect  view  of  the 
subject  throughout  the  analysis.  I  regard  this 
as  the  better  way,  since  the  subject's  curiosity 
is  aroused  as  to  what  the  analyst  is  about  if  he 
is  not  in  full  view.  Needless  to  add,  the  analyst 
must  be  so  schooled  as  to  betray  no  surprise  or 
discomfiture  at  anything  the  subject  may  reveal 
in  the  course  of  the  analysis,  however  grossly 
erotic,  vindictive,  vulgar,  or  even  blasphemous 
these  revelations  may  be.  The  analyst  is  the 
good  physician,  his  attitude  is  impersonal  as  that 
of  a  skilled  surgeon  in  the  midst  of  a  difficult 
operation;  indeed,  he  is  a  kind  of  surgeon  and 
it  is  his  object  to  cut  away  morbid  growths  from 


196  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

the  subject's  psychic  life.  To  accomplish  this 
good  end,  all  the  evils  which  have  been  festering 
in  the  Unconscious  must  be  brought  to  light  to- 
gether with  the  deep  anguish  which  they  have 
caused,  and  the  subject  must  abreact  these  fully. 
In  a  serious  neurosis,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  this 
sort  of  matter,  and  the  success  of  the  analysis  in 
working  a  cure  depends  upon  the  thoroughness 
with  which  this  matter  is  brought  up  into  con- 
sciousness. 

The  analyst  may  begin  with  conscious 
memories  which  cling  to  the  painful  complex,  as 
the  conscious  material  or  rather  the  fore-con- 
scious material  is  most  readily  and  quickly 
brought  to  light.  In  a  few  treatments,  this 
material  will  be  exhausted;  then  he  will  begin 
to  penetrate  more  deeply  into  the  recesses  of  the 
personality  and  bring  forth  unconscious  ma- 
terial. 

As  Pfister  remarks,  frequently,  the  first 
remark  of  a  patient  as  the  analysis  begins  re- 
veals the  nature  of  the  complex.  He  cites  the 
case  of  a  younger  man  suffering  from  the  CEdi- 
pus-complex  who,  as  he  came  into  the  room  for 
his  first  interview,  cried  out  excitedly,  "Promise 
that  you  will  reveal  nothing  of  what  I  tell  you 
to  my  father."  A  subject,  when  asked  to  give 
her  earliest  childhood  memory  immediately  burst 
into  tears  and  said,  "My  father  —  it  is  a  very 
painful  memory,"  and  went  on  to  relate  how  her 
father  had  taken  her  as  a  very  young  child  into 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      197 

a  desolate  spot  and  pretended  to  leave  her  there 
alone  in  the  gathering  twilight.  She  thus  re- 
vealed the  bad  father-complex  at  once.  After 
the  first  treatment  she  was  assured  that  she 
would  go  home  and  sleep  well  that  night,  al- 
though the  inexperienced  analyst  was  aware  that 
this  suggestion  was  not  according  to  the  best 
analytic  method.  It  turned  out  as  she  had  been 
told;  she  slept  better  the  first  night  after  this 
violent  abreaction  than  she  had  for  two  years 
previously. 

The  analyst  from  the  beginning  of  the  treat- 
ment analyzes  the  subject's  dreams.  Often 
the  first  dream  after  beginning  treatment  is 
tremendously  significant,  as  it  usually  reveals 
the  subject's  attitude  toward  analysis  and 
analyst.  Beginning  with  a  dream  or  a  dream 
fragment  as  a  starting-point,  by  tactful  ques- 
tioning and  the  reiteration  of  some  soothing, 
stereotyped  phrase,  such  as,  "Yes,  and  then?" 
or  "What  next  comes  to  mind?"  the  subject  is 
induced  to  bring  up  from  the  vast  sea  of  his  Un- 
conscious all  the  painful  matter  which  has  been 
festering  and  wounding,  together  with  the 
"affect,"  the  accompanying  agony  and  anguish 
which  mark  the  complex  from  which  he  suffers. 
The  greater  the  affect,  or  emotional  reaction,  the 
more  successful  the  treatment.  The  analyst  will 
feel  at  such  times  that  he  is  cruel,  but  he  con- 
soles himself  with  the  thought  that  he  wounds 
only  to  heal. 


198  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

The  subject  describes  his  dreams  circumstan- 
tially; if  there  is  some  obscure  point  in  the 
dream,  he  is  induced  to  relate  it  again  and  fre- 
quently the  obscure  and  hazy  parts  of  the  dream 
will  reveal  the  very  thing  that  the  analyst  most 
wishes  to  know.  For  it  is  owing  to  certain 
resistances  (caused  by  the  complex)  which  must 
be  broken  down  that  parts  of  the  dream  are  sup- 
pressed and  "forgotten."  Sometimes  a  mere 
dream  fragment  is  more  significant  than  a  more 
elaborate  dream  which  makes  a  great  impression 
on  the  patient's  mind,  since  elaborate  dreams  are 
frequently  mere  covers  or  disguises  to  hide  im- 
portant unconscious  motives.^ 

Deeper  and  deeper,  as  the  analysis  proceeds, 
goes  the  probe  into  the  Unconscious.  From  re- 
mote recesses  matter  is  brought  forth  that  the 
subject  supposed  to  be  long  forgotten  (it  is  just 
this  severance  of  mental  processes  from  con- 
sciousness that  gives  the  complex  its  power  to 
harm)  and  of  whose  very  existence  he  was  not 
consciously  aware. 

After  a  time,  the  character  of  his  unconscious 
life,  manifested  in  symptomatic  actions  of  a  hys- 
terical nature,  dreams,  mental  depressions  and 
anxieties,  undergoes  a  profound  psychic  change. 
As  his  resistances  are  broken  down  one  by  one, 

1  The  "latent"  content  reveals  the  true  Unconscious,  rather 
than  the  disguised  manifest  content  or  the  dream  as  remembered. 
See  Appendix  I  for  full  explanation  of  "latent"  and  "manifest" 
contents  of  dreams. 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       IQQ 

he  abreacts  all  his  painful  emotions,  the  grossly- 
erotic  character  of  his  dreams  changes  and  be- 
comes normal,  and  he  himself  becomes  a  well 
man,  capable  of  taking  a  useful  part  in  the 
social  organism.  He  has  transferred  his  pain- 
ful emotions  to  the  analyst;  finally,  the  analyst 
breaks  off  this  transference  and  thus  becomes  a 
bridge  over  which  the  subject  passes  into  reality. 
(Let  no  one  attempt  psycho-analysis  in  amateur 
fashion.  The  analyst  must  first  of  all  be  an- 
alyzed himself  so  that  he  knows  his  own  re- 
sistances, this  is  the  sine  qua  non.  He  must 
know  most  of  the  Freudian  literature  and  learn 
the  delicate  technique  necessary  to  conduct  a 
successful  analysis.  He  must  likewise  be  ac- 
quainted with  the  mechanism  of  dreams,  in  itself 
a  special  science.  Finally,  he  must  know  how 
to  treat  the  strong  positive  transference  of 
a  successful  analysis.  ]\Iany  an  otherwise 
successful  analysis  has  come  to  grief  at  this 
point.  Many  of  the  adverse  criticisms 
of  psycho-analytic  methods  have  been  based 
on  these  very  dangers,  an  indirect  compli- 
ment to  the  efficacy  and  power  of  the  Freudian 
treatment.  Both  opponents  and  advocates 
warn  against  misuse  of  psycho-analysis  for  the 
same  reason.) 

The  first  effect  of  psycho-analytic  treatment 
is  to  free  the  sex-instinct  or  craving  from  its 
unnatural  repression.  It  is  likely  for  a  time  to 
well  up  from  this  strong  repression  with  great 


200  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

force  and  power.  This  seems  to  be  the  basis 
of  most  of  the  adverse  criticism  of  this  method. 
But  is  the  effect  pernicious?  Enemies  of  Freud 
have  declared  that  the  Unconscious  is  released 
in  all  its  primordial  force  and  that,  the  inhibi- 
tions due  to  the  restraining  force  of  society  being 
broken  down,  the  individual  is  driven  to  a  life 
of  license.  This  is  not  true.  Whereas  the  Un- 
conscious is  freed  from  the  repressive  influences 
of  the  long  inner  conflict,  it  is  likewise  raised 
to  a  higher  cultural  level  by  the  treatment.  If 
the  individual  is  beset  by  strong  primitive  forces, 
he  has  also  new  strength  to  meet  them.  Even 
if  there  were  truth  in  the  statement,  it  is  better 
to  bring  these  forces  up  into  the  light  where  they 
may  be  fought  face  to  face  than  to  fight  shadowy 
foes  who  lurk  in  darkest  ambush  and  surprise 
the  individual  when  he  is  off  his  guard;  more- 
over, these  forces  in  their  repressed  state  are 
very  active,  causing  festering  wounds  from  which 
the  individual  suffers  no  end  of  pain.  At  any 
rate,  these  primitive  forces  were  not  quiescent, 
they  were  there,  and  even  if  repressed  they  lived 
an  independent  existence  and  forced  their  way 
into  consciousness  in  abnormal  fashion. 

In  any  case,  this  state  does  not  last  long.  The 
uprush  of  emotions  soon  spends  itself  as  the 
analysis  proceeds,  and  the  craving  sinks  to  a  nor- 
mal level.  When  the  onslaught  of  primitive 
emotions  has  ceased,  the  subject  is  conscious  of 
an  altogether  new  and  delightful  sense  of  power 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      201 

and  energy.  He  finds  that  he  can  accomplish 
prodigies  of  work  without  undue  sense  of  fatigue. 
He  is  capable  of  prolonged  attention  on  some 
piece  of  intellectual  work  which  would  have  tired 
him  in  a  short  time  in  his  old  state.  His  mental 
forces  are  coordinated,  they  work  for  him  not 
against  him,  his  fragmentary  mental  images  have 
been  collected  into  an  orderly  and  consecutive 
body  of  thought.  His  judgments  are  less  biased, 
for  decisions  and  appraisals  no  longer  rouse  a 
train  of  unpleasant  emotions.  He  has  been 
freed  from  his  old  conflicts,  he  no  longer  utilizes 
his  energy  in  the  futile  struggle  with  shadowy 
foes  who  in  his  former  state  invariably  defeated 
him  in  his  highest  purposes  and  finest  efforts. 

The  tone  of  his  physical  life  is  improved. 
The  functional  disturbances,  the  palpitation  and 
fear,  the  gastro-intestinal  affections,  the  various 
phobias  which  made  life  a  burden,  have  dis- 
appeared. His  sleep  is  sound  and  unbroken,  he 
is  no  longer  waked  by  terrifying  nightmares  or 
hysterical  symptoms.  He  is  a  new  man,  physi- 
cally and  mentally. 

The  analysis  has  more  than  likely  resolved 
his  religious  doubts.  He  no  longer  through  ob- 
jectification  of  his  own  difficulties  views  the 
world  as  wholly  evil.  He  may  perceive  certain 
ills  in  the  social  organism,  but  with  his  broadened 
vision  and  faculties  unclouded  by  secret  an- 
guished thoughts,  his  reaction  is  no  longer, 
"How  terrible  these  ills;  some  implacable  evil 


202    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

power  must  be  the  cause  against  which  it  is  futile 
to  struggle!"  It  is  rather,  "Here  is  this  world 
of  mixed  good  and  evil,  on  the  whole  good,  in 
which  certain  ills  inhere;  what  can  I  do  about 
it?"  That  is,  his  reactions  are  no  longer  those 
of  a  static,  helpless,  repressed  personality; 
they  are  dynamic,  they  call  to  action,  he  is  anx- 
ious to  do.  It  may  be,  as  certain  writers  claim, 
that  the  neuroses  have  given  birth  to  much  that 
is  very  beautiful  in  music  and  art  and  literature; 
we  have  seen  something  of  this  in  previous  chap- 
ters. But  the  neurotic  wastes  an  unconscion- 
able amount  of  time  and  energy  in  idle  day- 
dreams in  which  he  sees  himself  a  hero  or  a  poet, 
writing  symphonies,  leading  armies  to  victory, 
or  addressing  assembled  multitudes.  But  he 
never  gets  to  the  point  of  action  that  will  make 
his  visions  real.  His  energies  are  spent  in  futile 
revery.  Some  writers  have  gone  so  far  as  to 
refuse  to  give  up  a  neurosis  because  it  seemed 
to  them  artistically  productive.  The  public  is 
likely  to  differ  from  them  on  this  point.  The 
productions  of  the  neurotic  are  likely  to  be 
flimsy,  remote,  and  ephemeral  in  character.  It 
is  likely  that  in  every  case  of  artistic  or  literary 
talent,  the  output  would  be  vastly  improved  were 
the  neurosis  cured,  that,  without  losing  any  fine 
element  of  poetic  or  artistic  fancy,  the  work 
would  gain  immeasurably  in  breadth,  virility, 
compelling  force,  and  the  power  of  appeal.  A 
youthful  friend  of  mine  who  was  compelled  to  do 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       203 

uncongenial  work,  once  remarked  that  he  would 
not  take  the  whole  manufacturing  plant  in  which 
he  worked  in  exchange  for  one  of  his  day-dreams. 
Needless  to  add,  these  day-dreams  were  not  pro- 
ductive of  any  good. 

Another  friend,  a  public  lecturer,  who  was 
the  victim  of  various  phobias,  could  never 
face  an  audience  without  fear  and  trembling. 
(It  is  likely  that  all  stage-fright  is  from  neu- 
rotic obsession  or  phobias  of  some  sort.)  His 
lectures  had  been  upon  remote  literary  and 
artistic  subjects,  for  he  sought  in  this  work  to 
flee  from  reality.  After  psycho-analysis,  he 
found  the  whole  tenor  of  his  thoughts  changed. 
He  now  brought  his  chosen  themes  into  touch 
with  reality;  his  addresses  had  a  contemporane- 
ousness which  before  they  had  lacked.  He  dis- 
carded notes  and  found  that  he  could  address  an 
audience  boldly  and  fearlessly,  that  the  old  hesi- 
tancy of  speech,  due  to  the  conflict  of  unbidden 
compulsive  thoughts  with  those  he  wished  to 
express,  was  entirely  gone,  and  that,  since  this 
conflict  was  resolved,  he  had  full  control  of  his 
faculties  and  his  intellectual  processes,  therefore 
a  flood  of  well-chosen  language  issued  forth 
when  he  rose  to  speak.  He  discovered  that  he 
had  a  consecutive  body  of  thought  upon  which 
to  draw  at  a  moment's  notice.  A  theme,  when 
it  had  been  incubated  in  the  Unconscious  (i.e., 
the  Foreconscious  had  acted  upon  it),  brought 
forth  a  profusion  of  ideas  connected  and  logical, 


204   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

and  produced  whole  series  of  lectures.  In  brief, 
he  was  psychically  re-educated;  his  complexes 
were  re-molded  and  his  unconscious  processes 
thus  made  accessible  to  consciousness  and  hence 
to  his  will;  he  was  aware  of  his  own  inner 
motives;  his  judgments  were  therefore  more  un- 
biased and  his  thinking  more  unprejudiced  and 
logical ;  he  had  learned  how  to  think  and  how  to 
live. 

This  individual's  sex-life,  which  had  had  cer- 
tain abnormalities  due  to  his  neurosis,  now  took 
on  a  normal  tone.  One  manifestation  of  this 
that  somewhat  surprised  him  was  that  whereas 
formerly  he  had  read  evil  in  the  most  harm- 
less friendly  relations  of  young  persons  of  oppo- 
site sexes,  he  now  saw  in  these  natural  relations 
only  the  good  and  beautiful.  He  realized,  so 
he  told  me,  that  the  evil  he  had  formerly  seen  in 
these  things  was  through  objectification  of  his 
own  evil  complexes. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  psycho-analyzed  individ- 
ual is  conscious  of  his  own  motives.  A  brief 
auto-analysis  will  bring  them  to  light.  A  friend 
relates  that  he  hated  letter-writing.  He  sat 
down  one  day  to  discover  why  he  hated  it.  In 
the  passive  mood  in  which  he  could  observe  his 
own  processes,  he  found  that  the  thought  of  writ- 
ing or  receiving  a  letter  brought  to  mind  a 
woman  teacher  whom  he  had  dearly  loved  and 
revered  at  the  age  of  twelve,  doubtless  as  a 
mother-substitute.     She  had  given  him  much 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      20$ 

good  and  friendly  advice.  When  she  moved 
to  another  city  he  had  kept  up  a  long  corre- 
spondence with  her,  and  had  kept  her  letters  tied 
with  ribbon  for  a  number  of  years.  These  let- 
ters he  would  read  and  re-read  as  a  lover  reads 
and  re-reads  epistles  from  his  sweetheart.  When, 
however,  at  the  age  of  eighteen  he  went  to  the 
city  where  the  teacher  lived  to  take  up  a  posi- 
tion which  she  had  secured  for  him,  he  was  un- 
happy in  his  work  (due  to  his  severe  neurosis), 
he  found  that  the  teacher  did  not  come  up  to 
his  ideal,  as  so  frequently  happens  when  the 
neurotic  makes  a  mother-substitute  of  an  older 
woman,  he  was  bitterly  disappointed  and  de- 
stroyed the  carefully  preserved  correspondence. 
From  that  time  on  until  he  was  cured  of  his 
neurosis  in  his  thirties,  he  hated  letter-writing, 
because  it  brought  the  image  of  this  teacher  and 
the  long  correspondence  to  mind.  Of  course  the 
teacher,  who  was  a  very  good  and  intelligent 
woman,  was  in  nowise  to  blame.  She  had  taken 
a  friendly  interest  in  the  lad  and  was  surprised 
and  disappointed  at  his  vagaries,  the  cause  of 
which  she  of  course  did  not  know.  The  friend 
takes  all  the  blame  to  himself.  He  therefore 
recognizes  the  unconscious  element  in  his  preju- 
dices, also  in  his  predilection  for  certain  foods, 
books  or  persons,  his  love  of  certain  places,  his 
dislike  of  others.  These  are  explained  by 
Pfister's  formula  which  we  have  noted  before, 
"Now  it  is  as  it  was  at  the  time  when"  I  ate 


206  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

that  food,  or  read  that  book,  or  knew  that  per- 
son. The  complex-ruled  neurotic  has  a  growing 
body  of  phobias  for  this  thing  and  that,  this 
person  and  that  person,  until  at  length  his  vicious 
complexes  by  a  method  of  accretion  have  gath- 
ered to  themselves  so  much  material  that  every 
act  of  his  daily  life,  every  place  he  visits,  every 
book  he  reads,  every  person  he  meets,  give  rise 
to  painful  emotions  and  ideas  with  painful 
emotional  tone,  and  at  length  the  complexes  have 
comprehended  everything  in  reality.  He  there- 
fore shuts  out  reality  and  lives  in  his  self-created 
world,  since  the  vicious  complexes  have  fastened 
upon  everything  in  life  and  reality  has  become 
too  harsh  to  bear.  Everything  he  does  is  ac- 
complished only  with  a  superhuman  effort  of  the 
will,  for  all  the  acts  of  daily  life,  even  the  most 
trivial,  such  as  dressing  in  the  morning,  are 
fraught  with  these  painful  emotions.  Small 
wonder  that  at  length  he  shuts  out  reality  and 
retires  into  solitude,  either  a  physical  solitude 
such  as  a  monastery,  or  a  psychic  solitude, 
whence  nothing  will  induce  him  to  emerge.  It 
is  likely  that  most  of  the  cases  of  aboulia,  or  loss 
of  will,  which  are  so  familiar  to  the  pathologist, 
are  due  to  just  this  process  of  accretion  in  the 
complexes.  It  is  a  familiar  sight  to  see  these 
persons  standing  for  hours  on  a  street-corner  be- 
cause they  have  not  the  will  to  move.  They 
cannot  be  roused  in  the  morning  except  by  stern 
authoritative  methods.     They  never  finish  dress- 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      207 

ing.  If  they  go  out  to  walk,  they  do  not  come 
back,  but  walk  on  and  on.  By  the  law  of  inertia, 
they  go  on  forever  doing  what  they  are  doing. 
Since  many  of  these  persons  are  otherwise 
normal,  it  is  probable  that  most  of  them  are 
suffering  from  severe  neuroses. 

From  all  this  needless  pain  and  suffering  the 
psycho-analyzed  person  is  freed  and  permanently 
freed.  The  peace  of  mind  and  unity  of  being, 
the  harmony  and  inner  peace  that  in  many  cases 
religion  or  mental  healing  or  suggestive  treat- 
ment of  any  sort  has  failed  to  bring,  come  from 
the  abreaction  of  his  painful  emotions  and  the 
resolution  of  his  inner  conflicts  through  the  psy- 
cho-analytic treatment. 

We  perceive,  then,  what  a  powerful  agent  for 
good  psycho-analysis  may  be,  not  only  in  the 
hands  of  the  professional  neurologist,  but  in  the 
hands  of  the  clergyman  and  the  educator. 


2.  The  Psycho-analytic  Method  Applied  to 
Education 

The  gravest  problems  of  our  times  are  those 
of  secular  and  religious  education.  How  to 
present  religious  and  scientific  truths  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  a  permanent  impression  on  the 
plastic  mind  of  youth  is  indeed  a  problem.  So 
multifarious  and  so  divergent  are  the  theories 
of  education,  so  difficult  a  task  is  it,  that  a  man 
of  the  ability  and  acumen  of  the  late  Henry 


208    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

Adams  decided,  according  to  The  Education  of 
Henry  Adams,  that  after  all  life  itself  is  the 
only  thing  that  can  really  educate.  Unluckily, 
we  cannot  leave  the  individual  to  be  educated 
by  life  —  in  schools  he  must  learn  something  of 
the  search  for  human  knowledge  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  human  race  —  and  even  if  we 
could,  life  is  not  in  all  its  phases  the  best  edu- 
cator. He  is  quite  as  likely  to  follow  error  as 
truth  if  we  leave  his  education  to  the  chance 
impingements  or  the  fortuitous  circumstances 
of  the  average  life. 

On  the  whole,  we  may  say  that  the  methods 
of  arbitrary  authority  which  are  so  universally 
employed  in  education  are  bad.  The  youth 
sees  in  the  stern  and  uncompromising  teacher  a 
father  or  mother  substitute,  especially  if  his  par- 
ents are  harsh  and  he  is  driven  to  find  father  or 
mother  substitute  outside  the  home,  and  will 
visit  all  the  wrath  aroused  by  the  unintelligent 
parents  upon  the  head  of  the  teacher.  He  will 
accept  the  ipse  dixit  of  such  a  teacher  with  hate 
and  loathing.  We  are  fast  learning  that  the 
imposition  of  authority  will  not  gain  the  desired 
ends  of  education. 

Our  methods  of  education  have  been  remark- 
able for  their  lack  of  understanding  and  their 
lack  of  insight  into  the  processes  of  the  child- 
mind.  Instead  of  going  to  the  child-mind  itself 
for  suggestions  of  educational  methods,  we  get 
some  authority,  often  of  second  rate,  to  write  us 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       209 

text-books  in  which  history,  geography,  arith- 
metic, are  set  forth  in  a  dry-as-dust  fashion,  and 
then  we  compel  the  growing  boy  or  girl  to  sit 
at  a  desk  for  five  hours  a  day  conning  these  dry- 
as-dust  facts,  which,  so  far  as  the  child  can  see, 
bear  no  relation  whatever  to  his  own  life.  Oft- 
times  the  theories  of  mathematics,  geography, 
history,  the  sciences,  what  not,  set  forth  in  these 
books  as  well-ascertained  and  proven  facts  are 
naught  but  exploded  theories,  for  science,  un- 
fettered by  authority,  goes  on  to  new  discover- 
ies and  discards  the  outworn  theories  of  yester- 
day, but  in  school-books  there  is  little  change. 
Thus  in  some  schools  it  is  still  taught  that 
thinking  is  a  function  of  the  brain,  that  a  thought 
makes  a  track  in  the  brain-tissue,  that  the  more 
thinking  we  do,  the  greater  the  number  of  con- 
volutions, so  that  if  you  took  the  brain  of  let 
us  say  Isaac  Newton  and  examined  it  after  his 
death,  you  would  find  that  it  had  many  more 
convolutions  than  that  of  plain  John  Smith  the 
farmer.  Did  our  good  teachers  but  know  it, 
this  materialistic  theory,  carried  out  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  leads  to  a  denial  of  the  existence  of 
the  soul,  immortality,  God.  Yet  our  children 
are  still  taught  that  this  is  absolute  fact.  Such 
teaching  can  result  only  in  a  narrow,  provincial, 
prejudiced  outlook  on  life. 

At  this  point,  I  must  deal  with  a  subject 
which  I  approach  with  some  reluctance,  namely 
the  growing  sex-life  of  the  boy  or  girl.     It 


210  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

is,  however,  necessary  that  we  look  the  matter 
squarely  in  the  face  without  flinching  and 
discuss  it  without  equivocation  or  prudery, 
since  upon  normal  sex-life  depends  the  whole 
future  of  the  youthful  individual.  The  re- 
sults of  our  present  system  are  most  pernicious 
during  the  years  of  adolescence.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  adolescent  period  the  individual 
undergoes  a  profound  psychic  change.  He  is 
beset  by  a  whole  host  of  new  and  unfamiliar 
sensations  and  emotions.  When  the  growing 
boy,  beset  by  new  foes  in  the  way  of  erotic 
fantasies,  assailed  by  enemies  which  he  is  un- 
prepared to  face,  because  of  the  withholding  of 
sexual  enlightenment,  is  forced  to  sit  quiescent 
at  a  desk  for  hour  after  hour,  his  nose  in  a  book 
which  he  loathes,  the  effect  cannot  be  described 
as  other  than  appalling.  This  is  the  period 
when  the  boy  ought  to  be  learning  to  direct  his 
new  energies  into  muscular  activities,  when  he 
should  be  developing  altruistic  impulses,  when 
his  attention  should  begin  to  turn  outward  to 
others,  not  inward  toward  his  own  developing 
person,  with  its  profound  physical  and  psychical 
changes,  its  changes  of  structure  and  of  func- 
tion. Sitting  at  his  desk,  the  model  of  pro- 
priety, his  fancy  wanders  over  a  host  of  new 
and  fascinating  ideas,  all  of  which  would  be 
termed  "obscene"  by  the  good  teacher  could  she 
look  into  his  mind.  Nasty  boy!  No,  the  ado- 
lescent is  merely  passing  through  a  natural  phase 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       211 

of  his  development.  There  is  nothing  essen- 
tially wrong  in  these  growing  sex  feelings. 
There  is  something  essentially  wrong  when  he 
does  not  have  them.  They  are  the  beginnings 
of  his  adult  life.  They  have  their  uses.  The 
youth  is  but  passing  from  a  state  of  savagery 
into  a  civilized  state.  He  covers  every  out- 
house with  obscene  writings  and  pictures,  which 
are  nothing  but  the  phallic  symbols  of  our  pri- 
mordial ancestors,  the  basis  of  those  very  sym- 
bols we  retain  in  sublimated  form  in  our 
churches.  This  must  be  regarded  as  but  a  pass- 
ing stage  of  development:  a  dangerous  stage, 
too,  since  this  is  the  time  when  the  foundation 
of  severe  neuroses  is  laid  which  may  dog  the  in- 
dividual to  the  grave.  The  normal  individual 
soon  lives  through  it. 

The  normal  method  of  education  is  the  evo- 
lutionary method.  That  is  to  say,  we  cannot 
take  dry  facts  which  seem  to  bear  no  relation  to 
the  individual  and  fit  them  to  his  person  like 
a  ready-made  coat.  Each  stage  of  development 
demands  its  own  peculiar  method  of  education. 
We  must  fit  the  coat  to  the  growing  youth,  not 
try  to  squeeze  him  into  a  ready-made  garment 
manufactured  by  the  thousand  in  some  remote 
tailoring  estabhshment.  It  is  astonishing  that 
we  have  not  made  more  of  the  great  Froebel  in 
our  educational  methods.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  to  recognize  that  in  his  own  life  the  individ- 
ual relives  the  experiences  and  development  of 


212    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

the  whole  human  race.  Yet,  so  far,  only  in 
our  kindergartens  have  we  made  any  wide  ap- 
plication of  his  principles.  Only  the  psycho- 
analyst seems  to  have  made  any  wide  applica- 
tion of  this  knowledge,  the  cogency  of  which 
is  beginning  to  be  recognized  by  all  thinkers. 

Consider  the  wisdom  of  the  following  from 
Froebel's  Mother  Play: 

Is  it  not  true,  O  thoughtful  mother,  that  in  all  you  do  for  and 
with  your  child,  you  are  seeking  one  aim,  returning  forever  to 
one  central  point  of  endeavor?  This  aim  is  the  nurture  of  life. 
The  impulse  to  foster  life  is  the  very  core  of  your  motherly 
being.  It  gives  unity  to  your  feeling,  thought,  and  action.  It 
explains  why  your  feeling,  thought,  and  activity  rise  in  unison 
to  meet  each  manifestation  of  life  and  activity  in  your  child. 

Nothing  gives  you  greater  joy  than  this  ebullient  life,  pro- 
vided that  its  manifestations  are  strong,  calm,  and  in  accord 
with  the  laws  of  nature.  Unless  your  motherly  instinct  has  been 
warped  by  habit,  prejudice,  or  misunderstanding  of  itself,  it 
responds  at  once  to  the  movements  of  your  child.  You  will 
foster  his  impulsive  movements,  exercise  his  strength,  cultivate 
his  activity,  and  prepare  him  through  doing  for  seeing,  through 
the  exertion  of  his  power  for  its  comprehension.  In  a  word,  you 
will  seek  through  self-activity  to  lead  him  to  self-knowledge. 

Here  is  a  whole  philosophy  of  education  in 
a  few  brief  words.  Here  is  the  object  of  all  true 
education,  "through  activity  to  lead  him  to  self- 
knowledge."  The  child  himself  points  the  way; 
education  must  be  a  matter  of  unfolding  per- 
sonality, of  growth  and  development  along  the 
lines  indicated  by  the  growing  organism,  "in  ac- 
cord with  the  laws  of  nature." 

That  sex  plays  a  large  part  in  the  determina- 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      213 

tion  of  the  individual's  career  and  adult  life  is 
just  beginning  to  be  recognized.  Froebel  him- 
self doubtless  suffered  from  some  sex  repression. 
He  tells  us  in  his  diary  that  his  father,  a  pastor, 
was  known  for  his  austerity  and  severity.  He 
saw  his  father  going  about  among  the  people, 
rebuking  them  for  their  sins,  which  often  were 
of  a  sexual  nature.  The  growing  boy  was  over- 
whelmed with  the  thought  that  the  sex  life 
caused  such  disintegration  of  human  character 
and  such  dissonances  in  their  lives.  How  beau- 
tiful was  the  world  of  nature,  free  from  these 
conflicts,  in  contrast  with  human  life!  He  was 
most  unhappy  over  the  situation  until  one  day 
he  was  looking  at  the  opening  hazel  buds,  when 
his  elder  brother,  home  on  a  visit,  enlightened 
him  as  to  the  sexual  nature  of  plants.  Now  all 
was  changed;  he  saw  the  things  of  sex  not  as 
something  abhorrent,  peculiar  to  the  human  race 
and  due  to  sin,  but  as  beautiful,  inevitable,  and 
above  all,  natural. 

By  withholding  sexual  enlightenment,  parents 
and  teachers  must  bear  the  blame  for  a  good 
many  sexual  anomalies.  The  period  of  early 
adolescence  is  the  so-called  masturbation  period, 
although  many  individuals  have  begun  this  habit 
many  years  earlier.  To  understand  this  wide- 
spread practice,  we  must  know  the  evolutionary 
process  by  which  the  personality  grows.  Dur- 
ing infancy  and  early  childhood,  the  individual 
finds  his  satisfactions  in  his  own  person;   this 


214   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

and  the  mother  are  all  the  world  it  knows.  It 
is  likely  that  its  attachment  to  its  mother  is  at 
first  only  because  of  self-gratification  through 
the  nutritive  function.  The  child  is  intensely 
and  inherently  individualistic.  One  who  has 
watched  the  play  of  small  children  will  recognize 
this  trait.  All  its  thoughts  and  desires  center 
in  self.  But  with  the  beginning  of  adolescent 
years,  the  normal  person  turns  to  the  world  with- 
out for  his  satisfactions  and  for  objects  of  love. 
Thus,  if  the  boy  has  been  addicted  to  mastur- 
bation, which  is  a  symptom  of  auto-eroticism, 
self-love,  he  will  outgrow  this  trait  in  due  time 
if  he  be  a  normal  person  and  will  turn  his  atten- 
tion to  the  world  without.  His  acts  are  at  any 
rate  no  worse  than  those  of  the  alcoholic  and 
drug  addict  who  finds  satisfaction  in  self-stimu- 
lation or  the  neurotic  who  satisfies  inner  crav- 
ings in  fantastic  reveries.  All  of  these  acts  are 
asocial  and  baneful  in  their  effects.  The  youth 
will  put  his  bad  practices  behind  him  and  turn 
his  love  to  her  who  will  be  his  life  partner  if  he 
develops  normally.  But  if  sexual  enlighten- 
ment is  withheld,  or  on  account  of  bad  environ- 
ment and  wrong  training,  his  infantile  fixations 
persist  into  adult  life,  he  will  not  give  up  the 
practice.  The  evil  complex  which  keeps  his 
emotional  life  in  its  child  state  will  cause  the 
practice  to  persist. 

It  is  likely  that  all  of  these  pernicious  prac- 
tices could  be  prevented  if  the  child  had  a  proper 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      21$ 

and  normal  sex  education.  We  develop  the  in- 
tellects of  our  children,  but  their  emotional  life 
is  left  to  run  riot.  The  best  way  to  cure  a  neu- 
rosis is  to  prevent  it.  If  children  were  brought 
up  with  a  normal,  active,  out-of-door  life,  were 
not  made  the  victims  of  an  adult  lust  for  fond- 
ling, were  taught  in  good  season,  that  is  in  their 
early  teens,  the  secrets  of  sex  life,  it  is  likely 
that  they  would  grow  up  more  normally  and 
that  none  of  the  tendencies  that  lead  to  solitary 
vice  of  any  sort  would  have  opportunity  to  de- 
velop. There  would  certainly  be  far  fewer  neu- 
roses to  devastate  human  life. 

Many  a  neurosis  has  developed  because  a 
youth  was  frightened  by  an  over-zealous  teacher, 
pastor,  or  relative  into  believing  that  mastur- 
bation would  eventually  work  great  physical 
harm  in  his  life  or  had  done  so  already.  He 
is  told  that  this  practice  will  destroy  the  spinal 
cord,  use  up  brain-tissue,  and  finally  result  in 
idiocy  or  insanity.  What  evil  work  of  good  and 
pious  but  ignorant  people  the  neurologist  has 
to  undo  here!  What  years  of  misery,  useless- 
ness,  and  deepest  anguish  are  the  outcome  of 
such  teaching!  And  what  years  of  fruitless 
effort,  what  incredible  sums  of  money  are  spent 
by  the  neurotic  in  search  of  mental  health! 
What  anguished  cries  burst  forth,  and  what  sup- 
plications to  the  Almighty  for  release  from  this 
living  death  are  wrung  from  anguished  lips! 
No  one  but  the  Recording  Angel  can  ever  know 
what  these  badly-taught  individuals  suffer. 


2l6   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

The  truth  is,  masturbation  is  not  the  cause  of 
any  nervous  ill  in  itself.  It  is  only  where  the 
individual  has  been  frightened  that  it  may  be 
said  in  any  sense  even  to  be  a  contributing  cause. 
Its  physical  results  have  been  grossly  exagger- 
ated by  ignorance  and  avarice.  It  is  not  a  cause 
at  all,  but  a  symptom.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
neurotic  masturbates  because  he  has  never  out- 
grown the  childish  fixation  upon  himself;  he  is 
neurotic  and  auto-erotic.  We  must  therefore 
treat  fundamentals:  get  rid  of  the  cause  and  the 
symptom  along  with  other  neurotic  symptoms 
will  disappear.  When  once  the  sex-instinct  or 
craving  is  released  from  its  bad  repression,  the 
resistances  are  broken  down,  and  the  individual 
is  freed  from  his  inner  conflicts  that  throw  him 
back  upon  an  inner  world  as  a  relief  from  reality, 
and  thus  his  gaze  is  turned  outward  —  he  will 
cease  from  all  these  evil  practices. 

In  the  course  of  his  development,  the  normal 
individual  breaks  loose  from  his  infantile  fixa- 
tions; his  craving  is  then  turned  toward  his  life 
partner,  or  is  sublimated  and  turned  toward 
social  ends.  But  in  the  neurotic  these  fixations 
persist,  and  then  the  subject  must  be  freed  by 
psycho-analytic  treatment.  We  have  seen  the 
multitude  of  evils  to  which  repression  of  the  sex- 
instinct  lead.  And  it  is  of  little  use  for  the  neu- 
rotic to  struggle  for  self-control;  while  he  is  in 
the  neurotic  state  no  struggle  can  end  in  anything 
but  defeat,  for  no  futile  attempts  at  self-con- 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       217 

trol  will  serve  to  keep  the  instincts  chained  and 
innocuous ;  they  will  seek  some  avenue  of  expres- 
sion, if  not  normal,  then  abnormal.  The  only- 
efficacious  method  of  dealing  with  sex-instinct 
is  to  free  it  from  repression,  then  turn  the  re- 
leased energy  to  social  ends. 

No  educator  should  ever  be  allowed  to  train 
youth  who  is  not  an  expert  psychologist,  who 
does  not  know  the  mental  processes  of  youth, 
nor  is  not  cognizant  of  the  character  and  potency 
of  the  Unconscious  in  the  determination  of  the 
individual's  mode  of  life.  It  is  better  if  he 
himself  be  psycho-analyzed  and  know  his  own 
strengths  and  weaknesses.  Unless  he  have  this 
background,  he  cannot  understand,  nor  deal 
effectively  and  intelligently  with  growing  youth. 
He  will  reward  and  punish  because  of  personal 
prejudice,  not  from  a  disinterested  view  of  the 
merits  of  a  case,  unless  he  knows  himself  and 
understands  the  mechanism  of  each  individual 
consciousness  with  which  he  deals.  Every 
student  will  present  individual  and  peculiar 
problems;  the  success  of  his  education  depends 
upon  the  educator's  comprehension  of  these 
problems  and  the  methods  with  which  he  deals 
with  them. 

We  shall  take  two  types  of  student  and  ques- 
tion our  educator  regarding  them.  What  makes 
A  bright,  happy,  keen,  alert,  and  apt  at  his  les- 
sons, active  on  the  playground,  a  social  leader, 
sure  of  his  powers,  capable  of  accomplishment, 


2l8   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

while  B  is  morose,  melancholy,  self-centered, 
solitary,  ill  at  ease,  diffident,  inefficient,  asocial? 
Many  an  educator  would  be  at  a  loss  to  answer. 
He  would  probably  murmur  something  about 
^'family,  heredity,  bad  constitution,"  or  the  like. 
But  unless  the  educator  can  answer  this  ques- 
tion intelligently,  he  is  no  educator,  for  he  does 
not  know  the  inner  workings  of  his  students' 
minds.  A  characteristic  answer  to  the  above 
question  would  be,  "B  masturbates."  Just  so 
—  but  does  the  educator  know  why?  For  it  is 
not  the  cause,  but  the  symptom  of  some  moral 
and  mental  defect;  more  than  likely  perfectly 
curable.  Put  B  through  a  brief  psycho-analysis, 
and  you  will  probably  find  that  there  is  an  effi- 
cient cause  in  his  emotional  background  for 
his  evil  practices,  and  that  while  his  defect  is 
not  congenital,  there  are  evidences  in  his  case  of 
family  conflict  and  infantile  fixations  not  yet 
broken  up.  The  chances  are  ten  to  one  that  for 
some  reason  he  hates  his  father,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  that  his  father  was  unduly  harsh, 
cruel,  vicious,  or  dissolute,  or  the  boy  feels  that 
the  father  is  not  worthy  of  the  mother  and  so 
would  supplant  him  —  in  any  case  he  loathes 
the  father  and  so  suffers  from  the  CEdipus- 
complex.  This  much  is  certain:  he  will  never 
be  happy  or  efficient  until  he  is  freed  from  his 
neurosis.  Freed  from  its  binding  fetters,  and 
sometimes  even  a  brief  psycho-analysis  will 
accomplish  this,  the  chances  are  good  that  the 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION       219 

youth  will  be  as  bright,  happy,  keen,  active,  and 
social  as  his  comrade  A.  No  one  can  be  happy 
or  efficient  who  suffers  from  some  secret,  heart- 
breaking anguish.  No  amount  of  good  counsel 
about  the  evils  of  his  life,  no  amount  of  en- 
couragement to  more  strenuous  effort,  no  moral 
guidance,  no  spur  of  any  sort,  will  in  the  least 
avail,  until  the  fundamental  thing  is  reached  and 
removed.  No  one  can  live  a  whole  life  with  a 
cancerous  neurotic  growth  eating  at  his  heart 
and  devouring  his  life. 

We  shall  have  no  education  of  youth  worthy 
of  the  name  until  the  springs  of  human  action, 
the  motivation  of  human  life,  and  the  psychic 
mechanism  of  the  various  neuroses  and  hyste- 
rias are  thoroughly  understood  by  educators. 

3.  The  Psycho-analytic  Method  in  Religious 

Education 

If  the  aim  of  secular  education  is  the  broaden- 
ing and  deepening  of  personality  through  cul- 
tivation of  intellectual  forces,  and  the  enrich- 
ment of  personality  through  creation  of  new 
values  and  wider  intellectual  horizons,  the  aim 
of  religious  education,  as  differentiated  from 
secular,  must  be  the  elevation  of  the  individual 
life  through  bringing  it  in  touch  with  the  divine, 
the  inculcation  of  high  ethical  ideals,  and  the 
development  of  altruistic  impulses.  To  be  effec- 
tive, religious  education  must  penetrate  to  the 


220   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

deepest  recesses  of  the  personality;  it  deals  with 
the  emotions  as  secular  education  deals  with  the 
intellect,  that  is,  it  must  begin  where  secular 
education  leaves  off,  it  must  profoundly  affect 
and  change  the  emotions  of  the  individual,  and 
by  directing  them  away  from  egotistic  and  self- 
ish impulses,  turn  them  outward  and  assist  in 
focussing  them  upon  other  lives.  "Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This 
is  the  great  and  first  commandment.  And  a 
second  like  unto  it  is  this,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."  (Matt,  xxii,  37-39.) 
That  is  to  say,  the  individual  best  exemplifies 
his  love  to  God  in  love  to  his  fellow.  True 
religion  centers  in  love,  and  he  who  because  of 
repression  cannot  love  normally,  cannot  be  truly 
religious.  How  completely  the  world  called 
Christian  has  forgotten  this  gospel  of  love  is 
demonstrated  in  all  the  horrors  of  the  great  war. 
We  have  already  seen  how  the  individual 
inhibited  in  his  love-life  is  unhappy,  badly 
adjusted  to  his  environment,  out  of  tune  with 
God  and  the  universe.  The  object  of  religion 
should  be  to  bring  about  the  desired  harmony. 

(a)  The  Bible  as  Fetish 

Many  religious  educators  think  of  the  Bible  as 
a  kind  of  fetish.  They  seem  to  feel  that  in 
some  vague  and  mystic  manner  the  mere  read- 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      221 

ing  of  the  Bible  will  work  profound  changes  in 
individual  life.  The  representative  of  a  certain 
religio-social  organization  informed  me  that  in 
a  large  factory  the  men  had  been  induced  by- 
one  of  the  representatives  of  this  society  to  sign 
a  pledge  card  that  they  would  read  a  chapter 
of  the  Bible  every  day.  What  good  is  to  be 
accomplished  by  this  promiscuous  mechanical 
reading  is  a  mystery.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no 
real  good  is  accomplished  by  such  methods,  or 
rather  lack  of  method.  It  places  the  Bible 
exactly  on  a  level  with  the  piece  of  bone  or  shell 
carried  by  the  savage,  to  which  some  mysterious 
virtue  has  been  transmitted  by  some  god,  so  that 
it  shields  him  from  harm  or  gives  him  power  over 
his  enemies.  It  is  as  if,  aside  from  its  content, 
the  Bible  had  a  mysterious  force  for  good  which 
one  might  absorb  by  mere  unintelligent  reading. 
As  a  Jesuit  writer  has  well  pointed  out  (Rev. 
Bernard  J.  Otten:  Does  it  Matter  Much  What  I 
Believe?),  not  all  of  the  truths  of  the  Bible  are 
on  the  surface.  One  must  read  with  intelligence 
and  understanding  to  get  the  underlying  truths. 
As  he  says,  inspired  by  the  Bible,  Catholic  has 
persecuted  Protestant,  Protestant  has  perse- 
cuted Catholic,  Gentile  has  persecuted  Jew. 
Without  a  background  of  intelligence  and 
scholarship,  the  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  uncer- 
tain. We  have  seen  in  the  case  of  the  great 
Origen  (page  121)  how  a  misreading  of  the 
Scripture  may  lead  even  to  self-mutilation;  we 


222    RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

know  that  a  great  deal  of  the  Sadistic  and 
Masochistic  cruelty  for  which  religion  has  been 
responsible  in  all  the  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  has  been  directly  inspired  by  a  misreading  of 
the  Scripture.  Every  individual  sect  of  Protes- 
tantism finds  there  justification  for  its  own 
peculiar  dogmas. 

As  Father  Otten  goes  on  to  say,  an  infallible 
book  demands  an  infallible  interpreter,  else 
harm  is  likely  to  come  from  its  inspirations  as 
well  as  good. 

We  must  recognize  that  the  Bible  is  not  one 
book  but  a  great  body  of  religious  literature 
extending  over  many  centuries  and  that  it  runs 
the  whole  gamut  of  human  thought  and  specula- 
tion, from  the  creation  myths  of  Genesis  to  the 
highly  ethical  Gospel  of  Jesus. 

The  teaching  in  most  of  our  Church  Schools, 
inspired  by  the  Bible  as  fetish,  has  been  stereo- 
typed and  dreary  enough.  The  pupil  feels  with 
reason  that  many  of  the  things  taught  bear  no 
relation  whatever  to  his  own  life,  or  indeed  to 
contemporary  life  in  any  of  its  aspects.  Certain 
religious  publishing  houses  announce  that  by 
their  method  of  teaching,  the  whole  Bible  will  be 
read  and  studied  in  a  period  of  three  or  four 
years.  Why  should  the  whole  Bible  be  studied? 
Who  is  interested  or  edified  by  the  long  catego- 
ries, the  dreary  length  of  the  Torah,  the  monot- 
onous genealogies,  the  primitive  pornographic 
material,  except  the  ethnologist,  the  scientific 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      223 

researcher?  How  or  why  should  children  hear 
the  story  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  involving 
the  account  of  what  happened  to  the  stranger 
who  came  to  Sodom  with  his  concubine  while 
Lot  was  resident  there?  If  such  material  is  used 
for  teaching,  what  good  is  accomplished? 


(b)   The  Nature  of  the  Bible 

The  teacher  must  first  of  all  know  his  mate- 
rial. So  long  as  teachers  are  chosen  for  their 
piety  rather  than  their  intelligence,  we  shall 
continue  to  have  little  result  from  our  religious 
training.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the 
teacher  must  unite  intelligence  and  training  to 
his  piety. 

He  must  know  his  material.  The  Bible  is 
a  collection  of  literature:  historical,  pseudo- 
historical,  pietistic,  prophetic,  poetic,  apocalyp- 
tical, ethical.  It  stands  to  reason  that  for 
the  purposes  of  teaching  its  parts  are  of  un- 
equal merit.  Many  of  the  Old  Testament 
accounts  are  chronicles  of  blood-lust  and  vio- 
lence. They  are  not  available  for  teaching  as 
preparatory  to  the  study  of  Jesus'  Gospel  of 
love;  they  directly  contradict  it.  The  Psalms 
are  partly  utterances  of  a  lofty  religious  spirit, 
partly  polemics  against  the  enemies  of  Israel, 
reeking  of  violence  and  vengeance.  The  cos- 
mological  material  of  the  early  chapters  of 
Genesis  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  series  of 


224   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

sex-myths,  common  to  all  primitive  religions. 
Now,  if  the  teacher  has  the  intelligence  and 
training  essential  to  a  true  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  this  great  literature,  he  is  in  a  position 
to  make  effective  use  of  it  as  teaching  material. 
He  will  successfully  bridge  the  gap  of  centuries 
and  demonstrate  to  his  class  how  the  lessons 
drawn  from  the  Prophet  Amos  who  came  to  the 
great  shrine  at  Bethel  and  rebuked  the  Israel- 
ites because  they  had  "sold  the  poor  for  a  pair 
of  shoes,"  may  be  applied  to  the  bad  conditions 
of  modern  society.  He  will  show  how  the  ques- 
tionings of  Job,  who  marvelled  at  the  triumphs 
of  evil  and  the  defeat  of  good,  are  the  eternal 
questionings  of  the  human  heart,  searching  to 
find  out  God.  If  he  knows  his  backgrounds, 
even  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel,  the  dreams  of 
Joseph,  the  story  of  David  and  Goliath,  may 
be  made  to  serve.  The  essential  thing  is  that 
he  bridge  the  gap  between  Orient  and  Occident, 
the  primordial  past  and  the  bustling,  material- 
istic present,  between  the  modes  of  thought 
which  belong  essentially  to  other  times  and 
places  and  the  present  time,  the  present  place. 
Thus,  he  will  make  his  teaching  effective. 

He  must  be  an  expert  religious  psychologist; 
he  must  know  how  and  why  universal  myths 
arose,  what  universal  human  need  is  back  of 
them.  He  must,  like  the  secular  educator,  know 
the  minds  and  mental  processes  of  each  of  his 
pupils.     He  must  know  why  they  evince  certain 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      225 

religious  tendencies,  why  they  have  predilec- 
tions for  one  part  of  the  Scripture  more  than 
another.  Many  of  these  tendencies,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  due  to  neuroses  and  not  to  true  reli- 
gious feeling  and  aspiration  at  all.  The  teacher 
must  learn  to  distinguish  the  true  from  the  false. 
For  if  an  individual  is  driven  to  join  the  church, 
or  transfer  his  allegiance  to  some  other  sect,  and 
the  basis  of  his  decision  is  a  neurosis,  he  will  not 
be  permanently  happy  nor  permanently  loyal  in 
his  new  situation,  because,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
cause  of  his  trouble  is  not  really  religious,  it  lies 
elsewhere.  In  this  connection  let  it  be  said  that 
the  psycho-analytically  trained  teacher  or  pastor 
can  guide  his  pupil  through  the  tortuous  mazes 
of  religious  doubt  and  fear,  help  him  resolve  his 
conflicts,  and  bring  him  to  sublimation  in  a  true 
conversion.  In  that  case,  the  preceptor  will 
make  the  individual  permanently  happy,  moral, 
and  efficient. 

The  teacher  must,  however,  guard  strictly 
against  giving  moral  counsel  before  the  pupil  is 
prepared  for  this.  If  the  pupil's  inner  conflicts 
are  not  resolved,  the  teacher  will  be  but  striking 
his  head  against  a  stone  wall.  The  pupil  will 
remain  impervious  until  he  is  in  a  condition  of 
freedom  from  his  psychic  bonds.  If  a  man  be 
drowning,  the  sensible  person  would  get  him  safe 
to  dry  land  ere  he  gave  him  good  advice.  So 
with  religious  training;  the  drowning  person 
must  be  saved  from  the  engulfing  flood  of  his 


226   RELIGION     AND    THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

neurosis.     Then  he  will  receive  religious  counsel 
with  willing  heart  and  mind. 


(c)  The  Symbolism  of  Religion 

In  our  first  chapter,  we  saw  something  of  the 
wide  prevalence  and  efficacy  of  the  religious 
symbol.  "Schleiermacher,"  says  Pfister  {Psycho- 
analytic Method,  page  275),  "even  considers 
religion  the  product  of  symbolizing  activity." 
It  is  true,  the  fantasies  of  religion  are  all  ex- 
pressed in  symbols.  Our  normal  e very-day  life 
is  expressed  in  symbols ;  we  cannot  speak  a  word 
nor  express  a  thought  without  using  a  symbol. 
The  etymology  of  words  in  common  use  shows 
how  a  literal  meaning  becomes  a  symbolic  as 
time  passes.  Thus  the  word  "concept,"  used  so 
frequently  in  these  chapters,  is  from  the  Latin 
concipio,  which  in  turn  is  from  cum,  together 
and  capio,  to  take.  Through  the  elaboration 
and  symbolism  wrought  by  the  passage  of  the 
race  into  a  higher  state  of  culture,  spatial  terms 
thus  become  temporal. 

The  intelligent  religious  educator  may  make 
wide  application  of  this  principle.  It  is  through 
symbolism  that  religion  gains  an  effective  hold 
on  human  life.  The  content  and  concepts  of 
religion  may  change  through  changing  centuries, 
but  its  symbolism  remains.  The  story  of  David 
and  Goliath  may  be  symbolized  to  mean  the 
struggle  of  truth  against  the  encamped  hosts  of 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      227 

evil ;  the  story  of  Gideon  and  the  broken  pitchers 
may  be  used  to  illustrate  the  inherent  cowardice 
of  the  evilly-motivated  person;  the  parables  are 
already  symbolized,  and  their  application  to 
modern  life  may  be  made  in  almost  endless  ways. 
However,  violence  must  never  be  done  to  the 
text  in  making  these  modern  applications,  as  was 
so  frequently  the  case  with  an  older  exegesis. 
The  pupil  must  comprehend  the  true  nature  and 
basis  of  the  myth ;  he  must  be  taught  the  mech- 
anism by  which  primitive  myths  are  created 
and  gain  wide  credence.  The  instruction  must 
be  free  from  the  slightest  element  of  deceit;  the 
pupil  will  be  quick  to  penetrate  the  sophistry  of 
the  teacher  and  will  lose  all  respect  for  him.  He 
wants  to  know  the  truth,  and  it  should  be  told 
him  so  far  as  the  teacher  is  able  to  tell  it.  These 
stories  gain  rather  than  lose  by  a  full  knowledge 
of  their  origin.  Their  power  of  universal  appeal 
lies  in  the  very  nature  of  their  origin  and  sym- 
bolic elaboration. 

Symbols  are  pictures,  therefore  more  easily 
grasped  and  comprehended  than  concepts;  the 
symbol  has  an  emotional  appeal  which  the  scien- 
tifically expressed  concept  lacks.  The  symbol 
is  subject  to  a  wide  variety  of  interpretation,  it 
therefore  appeals  to  widely  diversified  types  of 
mind. 

The  myths  of  the  Bible  might  very  well  form 
the  basis  for  sex-instruction  for  the  adolescent. 
They  are  rich  in  this  material,  and  certainly  if 


228  RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

we  teach  those  parts  of  the  Bible  which  deal 
with  these  matters,  we  should  enlighten  the  mind 
of  youth  as  to  their  real  meaning,  not  seek  to 
gloss  over  and  escape  to  what  seems  to  the 
prudish  mind  more  wholesome  portions  of  the 
Scripture.  I  have  distinct  recollections  of  a 
young  lady  teacher  who  read  Ephesians  v.  5  to 
her  class,  of  which  I  was  a  youthful  member, 
and,  ignoring  our  questions,  went  on  to  the  rest 
of  the  Sunday  School  lesson  without  further 
comment.  An  excellent  opportunity  was  missed 
for  sexual  enlightenment.  It  was  not  of  course 
the  place  of  this  young  lady  to  speak  of  such 
things;  the  conclusion  would  seem  to  be,  there- 
fore, that  a  class  of  adolescent  boys  should  have 
a  man-teacher  who  is  free  from  prudery  and 
from  injurious  fixations.  Parents  who  them- 
selves suffer  from  infantile  fixations  will  invari- 
ably object  to  a  frank  discussion  of  such  matters 
in  the  public  school  or  the  Church  School,  and 
this  will  make  the  religious  educator's  task  diffi- 
cult. It  is  but  fair  to  say,  however,  that  there 
is  an  increasing  number  of  parents  who  are  only 
too  glad  to  have  their  children  enlightened  in 
matters  of  sex,  if  only  some  one  else  will  do  it. 

Our  Church  Schools  suffer  appallingly  from 
lack  of  good  teachers.  As  we  have  seen,  piety  is 
likely  to  be  the  criterion  of  the  teacher's  fitness, 
rather  than  intelligence,  though  he  cannot  well 
afford  to  dispense  with  either.  The  teacher  of- 
ten has  not  had  the  benefit  of  a  good  secular 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      229 

education.  But  if  he  is  recht  in  Glauben,  cor- 
rect in  belief,  as  an  old  German  play  has  it,  he 
is  accepted  as  competent.  Many  rehgious  teach- 
ers are  those  who  have  definitely  shut  out  of 
their  lives  all  that  is  bright  and  wholesome, 
and,  driven  into  religion  by  severe  neurosis, 
they  focus  their  attention  upon  a  narrow  reli- 
gious field  of  thought.  In  this  class  we  find 
men  and  women  who  have  never  opened  the 
pages  of  a  classic,  have  never  set  foot  inside  a 
theater,  never  heard  a  scientific  lecture  nor  read 
a  scientific  book,  nor  mixed  with  a  wide  variety 
of  human  types.  Quite  commonly,  they  are 
typical  shut-in  personalities.  Until  we  get  a 
better  and  more  intelligent  type  of  teacher,  our 
Church  Schools  will  continue  to  languish  and 
our  religious  education  fail  to  be  effective. 

4.  The  Object  of  Education 
Youth  is  essentially  idealistic;  it  looks  out 
with  glowing  eyes  upon  a  world  of  infinite  pos- 
sibility and  rosy  promise.  To  its  pulsing  energy 
no  task  seems  too  difficult,  no  obstacle  seems 
insurmountable.  The  future  stretches  before  it 
as  a  highway  of  pleasant  accomplishment  and 
successful  attainment. 

Youth,  we  say,  is  bound  to  be  disillusioned. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  precisely  our  task  to  catch 
this  energy  and  optimism  before  it  takes  flight, 
and  so  mold  it  and  direct  it  that  the  individual 
lives  a  normal,  happy,  efficient  life. 


230   RELIGION     AND     THE     NEW     PSYCHOLOGY 

The  older  methods  of  education  took  the 
youth  with  all  this  energy  and  optimism  and 
sought  by  every  known  means  to  repress  them, 
and  by  killing  all  initiative  and  individuality, 
turn  out  educated  men  and  women  who  might  all 
have  been  run  in  one  mold. 

But,  latterly,  we  are  seeing  the  light.  We 
are  seeing  that  these  old  methods  are  not  edu- 
cation at  all,  that  they  kill  the  energy  necessary 
to  the  individual's  success  and  happiness.  We 
realize  to-day  that  the  object  of  education  must 
be  the  unfolding  of  the  personality  along  the 
lines  indicated  by  individual  gifts,  capabilities, 
and  predilections  and  the  enrichment  of  the  in- 
dividual life.  In  the  next  place,  and  this  logi- 
cally follows  from  the  first  object,  its  object  is 
\y  to  equip  the  individual  to  live  an  active,  useful, 
effective  life  in  the  world  into  which  he  is  thrown. 
In  former  times,  when  education  was  limited 
to  the  few,  its  object  was  to  turn  out  the  scholar 
and  the  gentleman,  rather  than  the  useful  citi- 
zen, and  apparently  it  mattered  not  whether  it 
fitted  him  for  useful  citizenship. 

To-day,  we  recognize  that  no  man  is  truly 
educated  unless  he  is  well  equipped  to  fight  life's 
battles  and  endure  its  hard  knocks  with  courage 
and  fortitude.  It  is  his  function  not  alone  to 
ornament  society  but  to  serve  it.  In  so  far  as  he 
serves  social  needs,  in  however  humble  a  capac- 
ity, he  performs  a  useful  function,  makes  a  real 
and  valuable  contribution  to  society,  and  so 


RELIGIOUS     PROBLEM     IN     EDUCATION      231 

furthers  its  progress.  To  this  end,  he  must  be 
complete  master  of  his  faculties,  physically 
strong,  mentally  sound  and  whole.  He  must  be 
mens  sana  in  cor  pore  sano. 


APPENDIX  I 
DREAMS  AND  DREAM  MECHANISMS 

EVERY  one  who  attempts  to  recount  a  dream 
has  the  feeling  that  much  of  what  occurred 
in  the  dream  has  escaped  him.  This  may  be 
true  in  some  degree,  for  most  dreams,  unless  they 
are  set  down  in  writing  immediately  upon  wak- 
ing, are  quickly  repressed  into  the  Unconscious. 
The  function  of  the  dream  is  primarily  to  pro- 
tect the  sleeper  so  that  he  will  get  his  due  amount 
of  recuperative  sleep.  It  is  demonstrated  be- 
yond peradventure  that  the  dream  is  a  wish-ful- 
filment. Every  dream  when  analyzed  shows  this 
element,  even  the  nightmare  or  anxiety  dream. 
By  fulfilling  the  wish  of  the  dreamer,  the  dream 
guards  his  sleep.  The  sleeper  may  be  thirsty, 
for  instance.  He  dreams  that  he  drinks  from  a 
cool  stream,  his  wish  is  thus  fulfilled,  and  he 
sleeps  calmly  on.  Sometimes  in  anxiety  dreams 
we  have  the  feeling  that  it  is  only  a  dream  any- 
way and  we  sleep  peacefully  on.  The  dream 
contains  thoughts  that  would  disturb  us  if  al- 
lowed to  come  into  consciousness.  Therefore, 
what  we  call  the  "censor"  which  guards  our 
psychic  life  symbolizes  the  material  so  that  we 
shall  not  recognize  it  as  disturbing  psychic  ma- 

2.3.3 


234  APPENDIX     I 

terial  and  thus  effectually  disguises  it,  or  else 
tells  us  that  it  is  only  a  dream  anyway,  then  we 
have  the  "dream  within  a  dream."  Inasmuch 
as  the  dream  may  contain  unpleasant  thoughts, 
we  quickly  forget  it  upon  awakening,  and  it 
sinks  into  the  Unconscious.  This  is  the  reason 
for  the  quick  forgetting. 

The  dream  contains  what  Freud  calls  the 
''manifest  content"  and  the  "latent  content." 
The  manifest  content  is  the  imagery  which  ac- 
tually appears  in  the  dream.  Thus  the  dream 
about  the  elevator  which  took  the  form  of  a 
^'little  white  house,"  related  on  page  65,  has  cer- 
tain dream-pictures :  the  large  building,  the  high 
platform,  the  little  house,  the  stout  man.  This 
is  the  manifest  content.  But  back  of  this,  as  we 
saw  in  the  dreamer's  analysis  of  the  dream,  there 
are  certain  thoughts  and  wishes  which  belonged 
to  the  thinking  processes  of  the  preceding  day. 
In  this  connection  it  may  be  stated  that  dreams 
always  deal  with  recent  psychic  material,  but 
they  are  likewise  "overdetermined,"  that  is,  they 
also  contain  wish-material  which  survives  from 
childhood,  they  have  likewise  sex-material.  The 
elevator  dream  had  such  material,  which  I  do  not 
care  to  discuss  in  this  place.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
such  material  existed.  This  material  we  call  the 
"latent  material."  It  is  the  cause  of  the  dream. 
There  are  layers  of  consciousness,  beginning  with 
the  upper  layers  of  the  Foreconscious,  which  lie 
between  the  Conscious  and  the  Unconscious, 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS      235 

reaching  down  into  the  remotest  recesses  of 
the  Unconscious.  The  dream,  in  symboHc  form, 
will  contain  psychic  material  from  each  of  these 
layers.  The  remotest  reaches  of  the  Uncon- 
scious are  very  difficult  to  explore,  the  resistance 
which  the  individual  sets  up  against  such  ex- 
ploration is  too  great  The  events  of  the 
twenty-four  or  forty-eight  hours  preceding  the 
night  of  the  dream  are  the  "instigators"  or  im- 
mediate causes  of  the  dream.  In  repressions 
caused,  as  we  have  seen,  by  infantile  fixations, 
organ  inferiorities,  unpleasant  experiences,  lie 
the  primary  or  efficient  cause  of  the  dream.  It 
is  only  after  an  analysis  penetrates  the  deeper 
recesses  of  the  Unconscious  that  these  appear. 

We  have  here  another  cause  for  our  apparent 
forgetting  of  the  dream.  The  feeling  that  there 
is  much  of  the  dream  that  escapes  us  in  the  re- 
counting is  due  in  large  measure  to  a  feeling  that 
there  is  more  of  it  than  appears  in  its  actual 
imagery.  This  "more"  is  the  latent  dream  ma- 
terial. It  exists  in  consciousness  as  a  kind  of 
shadowy  background  of  the  actual  dream.  We 
feel  there  were  many  more  happenings  in  the 
dream  than  we  are  able  to  tell,  but  they  re- 
fuse to  come  to  consciousness.  This  is  on 
account  of  strong  resistances  which  force  this 
material  down  into  the  Unconscious  and  keep  it 
repressed. 

In  the  actual  dream  we  usually  have  a  good 
deal  of  condensation.     One  figure  may  repre- 


236  APPENDIX     I 

sent  several  persons  and  have  some  characteris- 
tics of  each.  Dr.  Coriat  (Meaning  of  Dreams) 
reports  the  dream  of  a  physician  in  which  he  saw 
a  colleague  with  light,  silky  hair,  although  his 
colleague's  hair  was  dark  (page  2  8f.).  This 
light  silky  hair  really  belonged  to  some  boys 
whom  the  dreamer  had  seen  on  the  previous  day. 
He  desired  his  colleague  to  have  the  healthy  ap- 
pearance of  these  boys,  therefore  in  the  dream  he 
gives  him  the  light  silky  hair  which  they  had. 
I  dreamed  of  a  person  who  admitted  me  to  the 
house  of  a  friend.  The  figure  seemed  to  vibrate, 
now  appearing  to  be  the  friend's  wife,  again 
seeming  to  be  his  secretary.  A  woman  dreamed 
that  she  saw  a  strange  bird  with  a  human  head. 
It  looked  a  little  like  one  of  Dijrer's  apostles  (St. 
Paul),  it  reminded  her  of  DUrer  and  of  a  lec- 
turer who  had  given  an  illustrated  lecture  on 
Diirer  some  years  before.  Thus  the  face  stands 
for  the  apostle,  Diirer,  and  the  lecturer.  This 
phenomenon  appears  frequently  in  dreams. 
Sometimes  a  person  will  appear  as  two  persons 
in  the  dream.  This  "reinforcement"  is  due  to 
the  strength  of  the  actual  person's  image  in  the 
Unconscious.  If  the  dreamer  suffers  from  the 
(Edipus-complex,  the  mother  image  will  fre- 
quently appear  as  two  or  more  persons,  or  sev- 
eral persons  will  each  show  some  of  her 
characteristics.  The  strength  of  the  fixation 
and  its  potent  influence  upon  the  dreamer's 
psychic  life  are  responsible  for  this. 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS      237 

Nearly  every  one  has  had  the  feeling  that 
when  he  recounts  a  dream  he  is  adding  material 
to  that  of  the  actual  dream.  This  we  call  the 
"elaboration  of  the  dream."  The  tendency  of 
the  intellect  is  to  react  upon  the  dream  material 
and  strive  to  bind  it  up  into  a  connected  whole, 
make  a  coherent  narrative  of  its  fragmentary 
imagery.  We  have  to  allow  for  this  in  our  an- 
alysis of  dreams,  but  inasmuch  as  the  subject 
can  only  relate  what  is  in  his  mind,  it  makes 
little  difference  how  he  may  elaborate  the  dream 
material.  The  same  causes  that  are  active  in 
the  dream  help  to  produce  the  elaboration.  So 
true  is  this,  that  subjects  who  claim  they  never 
dream,  are  asked  to  "make  up"  dreams.  These 
artificial  dreams  have  the  same  characteristics 
as  the  real  dream.  A  subject  was  asked  to  pro- 
duce an  artificial  dream.  It  was  as  follows:  "I 
stand  upon  a  rainbow  and  wear  a  gown  that  has 
the  colors  of  the  spectrum,  with  the  violet  tints 
at  the  bottom  and  the  red  tints  at  the  top.  I 
slide  down  the  rainbow  into  the  water."  The 
subject  had  seen  a  rainbow  on  the  previous  day. 
She  confessed  that  she  desired  some  beautiful 
new  gowns.  The  sliding  down  into  the  water 
was  doubtless  a  desire  for  parturition,  although 
the  analysis  did  not  go  so  far.  From  examples 
given  by  Freud,  Pfister,  Coriat,  and  others,  I 
consider  this  to  be  the  case.  The  sliding  down 
is  likely  to  symbolize  the  sexual  act ;  the  waters 
are  probably  the  amniotic  liquor  which  appears 
so  frequently  in  the  dreams  of  women. 


238  APPENDIX     I 

Another  characteristic  of  the  dream  is  "dis- 
placement." A  finger  may  stand  for  a  phallus, 
the  mouth  for  a  feminine  sex  organ.  This  seems 
incredible,  but  analysis  of  many  dreams  bears 
it  out.  It  is  held  by  most  authorities  that  the 
sex  function  first  appears  in  the  child  as  the 
nutritive  function.  I  have  quoted  Freud  on 
page  7,  note,  as  saying  that  the  ''sexual  pre- 
sentation complex  (in  dreams)  is  transposed  to 
the  eating-complex."  The  displacement  in  the 
dream  is  similar  to  the  word-displacement  which 
is  the  basis  of  so  many  witticisms.  Thus  in 
"Alice  in  Wonderland,"  Alice  is  told  that  the 
pupils  in  the  under- water  school  study  "reeling, 
writhing,  and  drawling,"  instead  of  "reading, 
writing,  and  drawing."  The  phenomenon  is 
familiar  in  errors  in  speech  of  every-day  life. 
The  classic  story  of  the  man  dining  with  a 
miserly  friend  whose  table  was  notable  for  the 
meager  array  of  food  and  who  remarked,  "There 
is  one  thing  about  Roosevelt,  he  always  gives  a 
man  a  square  meal,"  when  he  meant  to  say 
"a  square  deal,"  is  well  known.  As  in  this  case, 
the  results  are  often  ludicrous.  In  daily  life 
these  speech-errors  arise  from  the  conflict  be- 
tween what  is  really  in  a  man's  thoughts  and 
what  he  wants  to  say.  The  public  speaker  will 
proceed  fluently  with  his  address  up  to  a  certain 
point,  then  he  will  begin  to  stammer  and  hesi- 
tate. Something  else  is  in  the  background  of 
consciousness  striving  for  expression.     We  often 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS       239 

feel  in  our  every-day  associations  that  a  man  is 
lying  when  he  hesitates  in  his  speech;  for  we 
know  that  he  is  thinking  one  thing  and  saying 
another.  Sometimes  the  hesitation  or  speech- 
error  is  due  to  an  unconscious  conflict;  the  man 
may  be  telling  the  truth,  but  some  repressed 
thought  or  idea  strives  for  utterance,  interferes 
with  his  utterance  and  causes  stammering.  Al- 
though this  does  not  seem  to  be  a  serious  dis- 
order, analysts  know  that  it  is  a  most  difficult 
disorder  to  cure.  Coriat  {Meaning  of  Dreams, 
pp.  172-173)  says:  "Stammering,  also,  is  fre- 
quently a  symbol  of  an  unconscious  mental 
process,  the  speech  defect  arising  in  an  effort 
to  conceal  a  repressed  thought  or  idea,  often 
an  idea  of  an  unpleasant  or  shameful  nature 
which  continually  tends  to  obtrude  itself  in 
consciousness.  Like  a  slip  of  the  tongue,  stam- 
mering is  not  accidental,  but  is  motivated  or 
caused  by  an  unconscious  mental  process  of 
which  the  sufferer  is  unaware."  He  says  further 
(Abnormal  Psychology,  Second  Edition,  p.  381), 
"This  speech  disturbance  is  one  of  the  protean 
forms  of  an  anxiety  neurosis." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  "symbolism"  of  dreams, 
especially  of  typical  symbols:  the  serpent,  etc., 
and  it  might  appear  that  these  are  arbitrary; 
that  every  symbol  appearing  in  any  dream  what- 
soever must  have  a  given  meaning  regardless  of 
the  age,  sex,  character  of  the  dreamer,  circum- 
stances of  his  life,  causes  of  the  dream,  mental 


240  APPENDIX     I 

state  at  the  time  he  dreamed  the  dream,  and  the 
like.  This  is  of  course  not  true.  By  the  very 
mechanisms  we  have  discussed:  condensation, 
reinforcement,  latent  and  manifest  material,  the 
censorship  which  changes  the  latent  material  to 
manifest  material,  and,  in  general,  the  symboli- 
zation  process,  it  must  be  evident  to  the 
reader  that  no  symbol  can  be  assigned  an  arbi- 
trary meaning.  This  would  be  to  degrade  the 
whole  analysis  to  the  level  of  charlatanry  and 
make  it  one  with  the  pseudo-science  of  astrology. 
Dream-books  are  based  upon  an  arbitrary  inter- 
pretation of  dream  symbols.  A  symbol  may  be 
masculine  or  feminine  according  to  where  and 
how  it  appears  in  the  dream.  It  may  have  one 
of  a  thousand  different  meanings.  It  must  here 
be  emphasized  that  the  interpretation  of  dreams 
and  neurotic  symptoms  must  be  understood,  as 
Adler  says  (Ueber  den  Nervosen  Charakter, 
page  4),  "through  the  testimony  of  the  only  per- 
son who  is  in  a  position  to  testify,  namely,  the 
patient  himself."  The  interpretation  of  sym- 
bols is  not  arbitrary,  then,  but  comes  to  light 
during  the  dream-analysis  from  the  conscious 
evidence  of  the  subject  himself.  Thus  we  see 
that  the  same  image  in  different  dreams  may 
have  many  different  meanings  and  we  are  at 
once  rid  of  the  reproach  which  so  many  have 
brought  against  the  Freudian  psychology,  that 
the  interpretation  of  symbols  is  arbitrary,  or 
that  one  symbol  is  stretched  and  warped  to 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS       241 

mean  almost  anything.  The  patient  himself 
gives  the  meaning.  To  be  sure,  there  are  typi- 
cal dreams.  If,  let  us  say,  a  thousand  persons 
had  the  typical  "ilying  dream,"  and  each 
of  these  was  found  to  have  the  same 
or  similar  latent  content,  a  very  good  case 
might  be  made  out  for  the  flying  dream 
as  typical  of  certain  mental  processes,  the  same 
in  every  case.  Our  judgment  here  must  rest 
upon  an  empiric  basis,  as  most  judgments  do  in 
medical  practice,  whether  it  be  psycho-therapeu- 
tics or  surgery  or  what-not.  They  must  all  rest 
upon  experience. 

Let  me  here  develop  further  the  conception 
of  dreams  as  representing  repressed  desires. 
The  Unconscious  of  the  child  is  not  sharply  dif- 
ferentiated from  his  Conscious.  His  dreams  are 
therefore  direct,  unelaborated  wish-fulfilments. 
The  piece  of  cake  or  the  fruit  he  was  denied 
during  the  day,  he  will  dream  of  at  night  and 
eat  the  same  in  his  dream.  The  excursion  he 
was  denied  during  the  day  (see  Freud's  Inter- 
pretation of  Dreams,  p.  107  f.)  will  appear  in 
his  dream  the  following  night.  The  dreams  of 
adults  are  seldom  so  obvious  as  this  in  their 
expression  of  wish-fulfilment.  I  can,  however, 
cite  at  least  one  case  where  it  was  just  as  evi- 
dent. A  young  man  who  was  very  fond  of 
dining  out  and  dissipated  a  good  deal  of  his 
time  and  energy  in  this  pleasant  but  useless  pas- 
time related  to  me:    "I  have  this  dream  again 


242  APPENDIX     I 

and  again.  I  dream  that  some  one  calls  me  on 
the  telephone  in  my  apartment  and  invites  me 
to  come  down  town  and  dine  with  him  at  Sher- 
ry's or  Delmonico's.  I  can  not  see  any  wish 
expressed  in  the  dream  (!)  but  I  have  it  fre- 
quently." The  wish-element  is  often  so  dis- 
guised and  symbolized  that  it  takes  a  keen 
analyst  to  discover  it.  Thus  the  meaning  of 
the  dream  of  the  elevator  in  the  form  of  a  little 
house  had  the  wish  element  but  not  obviously 
expressed.  Even  anxiety  dreams  have  the  wish 
element.  They  show  the  subject's  preference 
for  an  anxiety  dream  rather  than  face  his  hard 
life-problem  and  solve  it.  As  all  neuroses  are 
a  flight  from  reality,  so  the  anxiety  dream  means 
"I  would  rather  suffer  the  mental  torture  of  a 
nightmare  than  face  reality."  This  may  be  hard 
to  prove,  but  it  is  so.  The  dreams  of  those 
suffering  from  sexual  repressions  are  full  of 
phallic  symbols.  I  cannot  cite  examples  of  this 
without  betraying  confidences,  but  I  will  simply 
point  to  the  brief  dream-poem  from  the  Greek 
given  on  page  67,  in  which  the  lovelorn  girl, 
suffering  from  repression  on  account  of  having 
no  lover,  dreams  of  a  "tower  of  gold  and 
ivory."  ^     Subjects  sometimes  dream  of  a  land- 

1  Cf.  "Song  of  Solomon"  iv,  4:  "Thy  neck  is  like  the  tower  of 
David  builded  with  turrets,"  also  the  two  dreams  related  in 
iii,  i-s  and  v,  2-7,  the  first  of  which  shows  the  wish -fulfilment 
and  the  second  the  repressed  love  desire  turned  to  anxiety:  "The 
watchmen  smote  me,  they  wounded  me .  .   .  the  keepers  of  the 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS       243 

scape  covered  with  such  towers.  Fortunately, 
in  the  poem,  the  girl  herself  gives  the  interpre- 
tation, and  therefore  it  is  unmistakably  a  mascu- 
line symbol,  a  phallic  symbol,  in  fact.  She 
admits  that  the  dream  is  a  wish-fulfilment,  for 
she  declares  that  in  her  husband's  arms,  "she  will 
dream  no  dreams,"  obviously,  because  the  wish 
is  fulfilled  in  real  life. 

Latent  dream  material  is  often  of  a  very  un- 
pleasant nature.  Therefore  the  "censor"  or  re- 
sistance, which  looks  after  our  psychic  life  and 
strives  to  keep  it  from  disturbances,  allows  this 
material  to  pass  through  the  Foreconscious  into 
the  Conscious  only  in  symbolized  form.  In 
neurotic  subjects,  the  censor  is  sometimes  off 
duty,  he  is  caught  napping,  and  allows  the  un- 
pleasant repressed  material  to  pass  into  the 
dream  unchanged.  Patients  suffering  from  anxi- 
ety hysterias  will  frequently  have  such  disturb- 
ing dreams  at  the  moment  of  falling  asleep. 
This  is  because  the  censor  is  inactive. 

Many  subjects  will  relate  what  they  call  "pro- 
phetic dreams."  They  dream  of  an  event  and 
it  occurs.  This  is  either  coincidence,  or  because 
it  might  have  been  foreseen  that  the  event  would 
occur,  the  subject  wished  it  and  brought  it  about, 
or  because  the  subject  has  elaborated  a  vague 

walls  took  away  my  mantle  from  me"  (a  defloration  symbol, 
cf.  myths  of  shepherds  stealing  the  veils  of  bathing  nymphs,  etc., 
also  the  form  of  incest  prohibitionb  in  Lev.  xviii,  "thou  shalt  not 
uncover  thy  father's  nakedness"). 


244  APPENDIX     I 

dream  through  conscious  mental  processes  to 
make  its  event  coincide  with  events  that  oc- 
curred later.  Compare  with  this  the  prophecies 
of  the  automatic  writer  related  on  page  137,  also 
the  prophetic  books  of  the  Scriptures  Hke  Daniel, 
which  were  written  after  the  events  related  ac- 
tually occurred.  A  subject  will  dream  of  a  vague 
figure  which  might  be  almost  any  person  and  in 
the  dream  see  this  person  disappear  and  a  rush- 
ing train  take  its  place.  The  next  day  he  will 
learn  that  so-and-so  was  killed  by  a  train.  He 
will  immediately  connect  the  dream  with  the 
occurrence  and  give  a  circumstantial  account  of 
how  in  a  dream  he  saw  so-and-so  run  over  by  a 
train.  Most  prophetic  dreams  have  just  as 
slight  foundation  as  this.  They  are  not  to  be 
trusted,  any  more  than  any  prophecy  related 
after  the  occurrence  of  the  event.  The  highly 
figurative  language  of  the  Apocalypse  is  taken 
by  certain  sects  to  prefigure  the  second  advent 
of  Christ.  It  might  mean  almost  anything  else. 
Unfortunately  the  writer  is  not  present  to  sub- 
mit to  analysis  and  tell  posterity  what  he  really 
did  mean  by  his  bad  mixture  of  Greek  and 
Hebrew  idioms  and  language.  It  is  probably  an 
old  Hebrew  document  worked  over  by  a  later 
Christian  hand. 

There  is  one  sort  of  prophetic  dream  to  which 
significance  has  been  attached.  This  is  the  anx- 
iety dream  caused  by  organic  disturbance. 
Freud  {Interpretation  of  Dreams,  p.  27  f.)  cites 


DREAMS     AND     DREAM     MECHANISMS      245 

cases  of  organic  disturbance  which  gave  rise  to 
anxiety  dreams.  An  incipient  cardiac  disorder, 
he  states,  may  give  rise  to  an  anxiety  dream  from 
which  the  patient  wakes  in  nervous  terror. 
Coriat  (Meaning  of  Dreams,  p.  145)  and  others 
justly  remark  that  such  dreams  are  of  Httle  use 
for  diagnosis  of  physical  disorders,  since  the 
same  symptoms  are  produced  by  hysterical  dis- 
orders without  organic  basis.  Let  no  one,  there- 
fore, who  has  nocturnal  dyspnoea  or  palpitation, 
or  nightmares  of  various  sorts,  think  he  is  imme- 
diately going  into  a  decline.  I  know  of  a  sub- 
ject who  suffered  from  such  disturbances  for 
years  without  any  physical  deterioration.  The 
origin  of  these  dreams  in  his  case  was  purely 
hysterical. 

I  may  therefore  conclude  this  appendix  with 
the  statement  that  prophetic  dreams  are  not  of 
the  least  value  in  foretelling  the  future. 


APPENDIX  II 
BIRTH  DREAMS 

IN  our  exploration  of  myth  and  folk-lore,  we 
are  struck  with  the  fact  that  certain  types  of 
legend  and  myth  recur  again  and  again.  There 
is  the  tale  of  the  prince,  for  instance,  set  down 
by  the  genie  in  a  half-clothed  state  before  the 
gate  of  a  strange  city.  This  we  saw  (page  8) 
was  analogous  with  the  dream  of  nakedness 
which  nearly  every  one  has  experienced.  We 
noted  that  the  myth  is  the  dream  of  a  whole 
people,  it  is  the  individual  dream  projected  upon 
the  nation.  In  this  connection,  we  noted  the 
sex-imagery  which  occurs  in  every  primitive  cos- 
mology. On  the  same  basis,  we  may  explain 
the  arbitrary  gender  of  the  names  of  inanimate 
things  in  many  languages.  It  is  not  chance 
that  makes  the  word  "heaven"  {der  Himmel) 
masculine  in  German,  and  "earth"  {die  Erde) 
feminine.  To  the  ancients,  the  sky  seemed  a 
bowl  that  embraced  the  earth;  it  was  thought 
by  early  peoples  that  the  sky,  or  the  sun,  im- 
pregnated the  earth  and  caused  it  to  bring  forth 
fruit.  The  poet  has  taken  full  advantage  of 
this  arbitrary  gender.  Von  Eichendorf,  in  his 
poem  "Mondnacht,"  which  Schumann  set  to 

247 


248  APPENDIX     II 

music,  takes  advantage  of  the  arbitrary  gender 
to  create  the  beautiful  image  of  the  heaven 
(mascuHne)  bending  over  to  kiss  the  earth  (fem- 
inine), an  image  entirely  untranslatable  into 
English.  ''Es  war  als  hdtt  der  Himmel  die  Erde 
still  gekusst"  (It  was  as  though  the  heavens 
had  silently  kissed  the  earth). 

All  of  these  conceptions  root  in  early  myths. 
A  circumstance  that  we  frequently  encounter  in 
myths  of  all  races  is  the  descent  of  the  hero 
into  an  underground  passage,  tunnel,  or  cavern,* 
That  gold-mine  of  folk-lore,  The  Arabian  Nights, 
has  countless  tales  that  recount  such  an  adven- 
ture. Ali  Baba  descends  into  the  cave  where 
the  forty  thieves  have  hidden  their  treasure; 
the  Kalendar  Prince,  after  the  fall  of  the  brazen 
statue  from  the  island  mountain,  descends  into 
a  cavern,  where  he  finds  the  prince  hidden  whom 
he  is  fated  to  slay;  Alladin,  through  the  agency 
of  the  lamp,  opens  the  underground  cavern  and 
discovers  hidden  treasure.  Modern  mystery 
tales  deal  with  the  underground,  whether  it  be 
a  tunnel  connecting  an  old  castle  with  the  sea- 
shore, or  a  tunnel  leading  through  the  heart  of 
the  earth,  or  a  coal-hole  down  which  the  detec- 
tive follows  the  villain.  These  underground 
passages,  tunnels,  and  caverns  have  a  mysterious 
glamour  for  which  it  is  hard  to  account  unless  we 
know  the  origin  of  such  tales. 

We  have  but  to  remember  that  to  the  ancients 

1  For  instance,  the  Orpheus  myth. 


BIRTH     DREAMS  249 

the  earth  was  the  mother  of  all  things  to  get 
light  on  the  subject.  'The  bowels  of  the  earth," 
*'the  womb  of  the  earth,"  are  figures  of  speech 
encountered  frequently  in  both  ancient  and 
modem  literature.  We  have  seen  that  primal 
creation  myths  are  a  projection  of  the  individ- 
ual birth  story  upon  the  cosmos,  an  objectifi- 
cation  and  enlargement  of  individual  experience 
to  embrace  creation.  Inasmuch  as  we  are  now 
familiar  with  the  origin  and  mechanism  of 
dreams,  it  is  but  a  step  (in  fact,  the  only  logical 
step)  to  a  realization  that  the  dream  of  the 
individual  of  passing  down  into  a  cavern, 
through  a  tunnel,  or  into  some  subterranean 
passage,  which  at  length  leads  upward  (usually 
obliquely  upward)  to  the  light,  is  a  dream  based 
on  the  memory  of  his  own  birth.  This  some- 
what startling  fact  was  made  clear  to  Freud  in 
the  analysis  of  many  such  dreams;  to  Pfister, 
who  recounts  a  number  of  them  in  his  Psy- 
choanalytic Method,  and  to  Coriat,  whose  ex- 
perience is  very  broad.  Jung,  Adler,  and  Brill 
are  also  familiar  with  this  phenomenon. 

These  dreams  are  strikingly  similar.  There 
is  often  a  descent  into  water  (the  amniotic 
liquor),  then  a  passage  into  some  sort  of  dark 
cavern  (the  uterus);  then  a  feeling  of  being 
pushed  forward  from  behind  (as  in  actual 
birth);  the  movement  obliquely  upward  (as 
through  the  vagina)  to  the  light.  There  is 
frequently  a  great  fear  felt  in  this  exit  of  the 


250  APPENDIX     II 

dreamer  to  the  light.  The  child  first  knows 
fear  when  it  emerges  from  the  warm  security 
of  the  uterus  into  the  light  of  day.  It  is  no 
longer  protected,  safe  and  warm  in  the  mother's 
body.  It  has  become  an  independent  being,  an 
individual  thrust  into  life,  to  sink  or  swim,  sur- 
vive or  perish.  Many  neuroses  which  demon- 
strate the  shut-in  or  introversion  tendency,  with 
certain  hysterical  symptoms,  really  mean  that 
the  individual  would  like  to  return  to  the  dark, 
warm  security  of  the  mother's  body;  thence, 
to  be  born  again  a  whole  man.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  that  Jesus  was  aware  of  this  un- 
conscious desire  so  common  among  mankind, 
and  idealized  it  into  the  conception  of  being 
re-born  and  entering  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

The  most  striking  birth  dream  that  I  have 
encountered  is  the  under-water  dream  of  the 
Dakotan,  recounted  in  Will  Levington  Comfort's 
Child  and  Country  (pp.  321-329).  I  do  not 
know  whether  Mr.  Comfort  is  familiar  with 
Freud  and  the  theories  and  procedure  of  psycho- 
analysis. If  he  is,  I  should  suspect  him  of 
"tampering  with  the  evidence,"  this  dream  is 
so  complete  and  its  interpretation  so  true  to 
form.  I  shall  assume,  however,  that  the  dream 
is  recounted  actually  as  it  occurred  and  that 
the  narrator  has  not  been  influenced  by  the 
Freudian  psychology. 

The  Dakotan  states  that  he  has  had  many 
under-water  dreams,  beginning  with  his  child- 


BIRTH     DREAMS  251 

hood,  and  in  these  dreams  he  "learned  the  deeps 
of  fear."  He  goes  on  to  tell  the  instigators  of 
the  dream  he  is  about  to  relate.  It  was  a  cold 
rainy  night,  he  tells  us,  and  he  was  in  a  cot- 
tage on  the  Pontchartrain,  that  leaked  badly. 
When  he  retired,  he  was  both  wet  and  cold.  So 
much  for  the  instigator  or  immediate  cause. 
Suddenly,  he  felt  that  he  was  submerged  in  deep 
water.  There  was  a  "low  monotonous  lap  and 
wash  of  water  and  a  slight  heaving,  lifting 
sensation,  as  of  my  being  swayed  gently  to  and 
fro."  It  was  cold,  but  not  extremely  cold;  he 
had  hardly  a  sense  of  being  at  all;  the  cold  was 
really  a  low  state  of  consciousness  rather  than 
an  actual,  physical  cold.  It  was  dark,  and  he 
seemed  to  be  a  single  cell  floating  in  a  space, 
which  he  seemed  entirely  to  fill  ( ! ).  "No  sense 
of  self  or  body  in  comparison  to  outer  things 
was  existent,  except  when  a  larger  form  instilled 
me  with  fear."  He  seemed  to  be  back  in  the 
very  Beginning  of  things.  All  was  blackness. 
Then  there  came  a  dawning  light,  a  gray  light 
that  filtered  through  the  blackness  and  filled 
him  with  fear.  Then  he  seemed  to  sink  slowly 
into  the  depths.  He  lay  on  a  soft,  oozy  silt, 
surrounded  by  slimy,  snaky  fronds  and  stems  of 
water-plants.  Some  of  these  had  dim  phos- 
phorescent lights  at  their  extremities.  The  ray 
of  light  filtered  down  again  and  again  filled  him 
with  fear.  Now  he  reached  the  lowest  ebb  of 
consciousness;  then  he  felt  renewed  fear  of  the 


252  APPENDIX     II 

Ray  (of  light).  He  desired  to  flee,  but  was 
without  means  of  locomotion  (a  common  experi- 
ence in  dreams).  "Through  sheer  intensity  of 
panic,  I  expanded.  Then  there  was  a  thrusting 
forward  of  the  inner  vital  centre  against  the 
forward  wall  of  the  sack.  It  was  the  most  vital 
part  of  me  that  was  thrust  forward,  the  heart 
of  a  rudiment,  so  to  speak.  That  which  re- 
mained, followed  in  a  kind  of  flow.  The  move- 
ment was  an  undulation  forward,  brought  about 
by  the  terror  to  escape. 

"Fear  is  always  connected  with  Behind. 
With  the  approach  of  danger  I  had  started  for- 
ward. There  had  been  no  forward  nor  back- 
ward before.  Now  a  back,  a  dorsal,  came  into 
being,  and  the  vital  centre  was  thrust  forward 
within  the  cell,  so  as  to  be  farthest  away  from 
danger.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  potential 
centre  of  an  organism  came  to  be  in  the  front, 
in  the  head,  looking  forward  and  always  pointed 
away  from  the  danger  —  protected  to  the  last." 

Then  he  seemed  to  flow  forward,  striving  to 
cling  to  the  oozy  bottom,  but  to  no  avail.  The 
Fear  increased ;  he  gained  in  strength  and  speed 
of  locomotion,  going  faster  and  faster.  He 
feared  the  Ray,  but  was  thrust  forward  with 
increased  acceleration  into  the  light.  As  he 
emerged,  he  of  course  awoke. 

Now  comes  the  remarkable  part  of  the  dream- 
story,  namely,  the  Dakotan's  own  interpreta- 
tion:   "The   embryo   in   the   womb   eats   and 


BIRTH     DREAMS  253 

assimilates,  all  unconscious.  With  life  there  is 
movement.  The  first  movement  takes  the  form 
of  sucking-in  that  which  prolongs  life.  Then 
there  is  the  driving  forward  by  Fear  from  with- 
out. Low  life  is  a  vibration  between  Fear  and 
Gluttony.  In  every  movement  is  the  gain  of 
power  to  make  another  movement.  That  is  the 
Law  of  life." 

Here  we  have  a  precise  and  circumstantial 
birth  dream,  interpreted  as  such  by  the  dreamer. 
All  the  data  are  there :  the  low  ebb  of  conscious- 
ness, the  water  or  amniotic  liquor,  the  slimy  in- 
terior of  the  uterus,  the  rhythmic  movement 
that  precedes  the  actual  birth,  the  one  desire  the 
infant  knows,  the  desire  for  nourishment,  and 
the  Fear  that  accompanies  the  entrance  of  the 
wailing  infant  into  this  life.  We  have  likewise 
the  elaboration  of  the  dream  (see  Appendix  I) 
by  conscious  thought,  for  the  Dakotan  tells  us 
that  he  gives  us  "the  picture  as  it  appears  to 
me  from  this  distance." 

Who  can  doubt  that  such  a  dream  is  really  a 
memory  of  actual,  individual  birth?  There  are 
other  data,  such  as  the  pictures  of  snake-like 
fronds,  that  are  obviously  phallic  in  character 
that  proclaim  the  sex-origin  of  the  dream.  I 
advise  the  reader  to  read  this  account  in  the 
original,  and  from  what  he  may  have  learned 
of  psycho-analysis,  form  his  own  conclusions. 
The  swish  and  lapping  of  water,  the  humming, 
"ummmmmmmm,"  which  he  describes  is  exactly 


254  APPENDIX     II 

like  that  I  myself  have  heard  when  going  under 
the  influence  of  ether.  It  is  somewhat  like  the 
hum  of  the  dentist's  motor,  or  the  sound  of 
water  running  through  a  cavernous  space.  This 
seems  to  characterize  a  lowered  state  of  con- 
sciousness, such  as  that  of  the  unborn  infant. 
For  aught  I  know,  it  may  be  the  sound  of  one's 
own  circulation,  the  beating  of  blood  in  the  ears, 
as  when  one  listens  to  the  "sound  of  the  sea"  in 
a  conch-shell. 

Through  the  distortion  of  the  dream,  the 
image  may  be  reversed,  and  the  dreamer  may 
seem  to  be  going  into  the  water,  not  coming  out. 
Freud  tells  of  a  woman  who  dreamed  thus. 
"In  dreams  as  in  mythology,  the  delivery  of  a 
child  from  the  uterine  waters  is  commonly  pre- 
sented by  distortion  as  the  entry  of  the  child  into 
water;  among  many  others,  the  births  of  Adonis, 
Osiris,  Moses,  and  Bacchus  are  well-known  illus- 
trations of  this."  {Interpretation  of  Dreams,  p. 
244.)  In  this  place  Freud  recounts  the  dream 
of  a  young  man  who  was  in  a  deep  shaft,  whence 
he  emerged  into  a  field  which  was  being 
harrowed  (symbol  of  coitus).  A  female  patient 
dreamed  that  "At  her  summer  resort  at  the  .  .  . 
Lake,  she  hurls  herself  into  the  dark  water  at 
a  place  where  the  pale  moon  is  reflected  in  the 
water."  This  was  correctly  interpreted  as  a 
parturition  dream. 

Freud  concludes:  "It  is  only  of  late  that  I 
have  learned  to  value  the  significance  of  fancies 


BIRTH     DREAMS  255 

and  unconscious  thoughts  about  life  in  the 
womb.  They  contain  the  explanation  of  the 
curious  fear  felt  by  so  many  people  of  being 
buried  alive,  as  well  as  the  profoundest  un- 
conscious reason  for  the  belief  in  a  life  after 
death  which  represents  nothing  but  a  projection 
into  the  future  of  this  mysterious  life  before 
birth.  The  act  of  birth,  moreover,  is  the  first 
experience  with  fear,  and  is  thus  the  source  and 
model  of  the  emotion  of  fear."  (Italics  are 
Freud's.)  Cf.  the  role  that  fear  plays  in  primi- 
tive religion,  discussed  in  the  first  chapter  of 
this  book. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
PSYCHOANALYTIC 

Alfred  Adler:  The  Neurotic  Constitution 

I.  H.  Coriat:  What  is  Psychoanalysis? 
The  Meaning  of  Dreams 
Abnormal  Psychology 

SiGMUND  Freud:  Interpretation  of  Dreams 
Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life 
Totem  and  Taboo 
Delusion  and  Dream 

Wit  and  its  Relation  to  the  Unconscious 
Reflections  on  War  and  Death 

C.  G.  Jung:  Psychology  of  the  Unconscious 

Wilfred  Lay:   Man's  Unconscious  Conflict 

Albert  Mordell:  The  Erotic  Motive  in  Litera- 
ture 

Oscar  Pfister:  The  Psychoanalytic  Method 

F.  B.  Prescott:  Poetry  and  Dreams 

NON-PSYCHOANALYTIC 

Henri  L.  Bergson:  Creative  Evolution 
Time  and  Free-will 
Dreams 

257 


258  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Joseph    Grasset:    The   Semi-insane   and   the 
Semi-responsible 

William  James:  Psychology,  2  vols. 
Varieties  of  Religious  Experience 

Rudolf  C.  Eucken:  Main  Currents  of  Mod- 
ern Thought 

Morton  Prince:  The  Unconscious 

Joseph  Jastrow:  The  Subconscious 


INDEX 


Abreaction,  153,  180,  199 
Adler,  Alfred,  47 

inferiority   complex,   47 

dreams,  239 
Affect,  180,  197 
Ambivalence,  120 
Atonement,  158 

Bible, 
as  fetish,  220 
nature  of,  223 

Censor,  223 
Church,  161 

and  Puritan,  163 
Church  School,  222,  228 
Clergy,  186 
Compensation,  46 
Complex,  26,  85 

how  formed,  49 

and  phobias,  206 
Confessional,   188 
Conversion,  145 

method  of,  150 
Coriat,  I.  H.,  SI,  118,  126,  iss, 

S77,  183,  244.  -240 

Determinism,  74 
Dream,  63,  71 

and  myth,  248 

birth,  247 


displacement,  237 

duration,  68 

elaboration,  237 

latent  content,  198,  234,  243 

manifest  content,  234 

mechanism,  64,  233 

psychoanalysis,  196 

prophetic,  243 

symbolism,  66 

typical,  240 

Ecclesiastes,  60 
Education,  229 
Emmanuel  Movement,  176 
Evil,  cosmic,  100 
personal,  100 

Forgetting,  80,  175 
Freud,  Sigmund,  12 

d€'}k  vu,  81 

dreams,  84 

hysteria,  177 

immortality,  130 

organic  disturbance,  244 

rebirth  148,  254 
Froebel,  202 

Healing,  mental,  168 

supernatural,  173 
Homoerotism  or  Homeroticism, 

30,  183 


2S9 


26o 


INDEX 


Hypnosis,  176 
Hysteria,  169 
forgetting,  175 

James,  Wm.,  76,  89 
Jesus,  34 

on  rebirth,  150 
Job,  57 
Judaism,  33 

Latent  Dream  Content,  234 

Manifest  Dream  Content,  234 
Masochism,  120 
Motivation  of  Life,  41 
Mysticism,  87 

and  neuroses,  94 

and  repression,  97 
Mystics,  92 
Myth,  Garden  of  Eden,  6 

flood  myth,  249 

Neuroses,  104 

and  art,  202 

and  child,  107 

and  medicine,  no 

not  congenital,  114 

phobias  of,  105 

and  religion,  107 

and  sex  education,  109 

and  youth,  212 
Nervous  Breakdown,   184 

Occult,  the,  128 

automatic   writing,    136 

ouija,  134 

table  tipping,  133 
Oedipus   Complex,   28,   52,   54, 

196 


Pathological  Types,  115 
Paul,  35 

hysteria  of,  36 
Pfister,    Oskar,    35,    iib,    123, 

126,  179 
Prince,  Morton,  125 
Psycho-analysis,  137,  142 

and  education,  207 

and  hysteria,  180 

method  of,  194 

and  religious  education,  219 

Rebirth,  146 

dreams,  149,  250 

wish,  250 
Religion, 

applied,  160 

changing,  158 

and  education,  191 

emotional  basis  of,  19 

modern,  10 

and  sex,  39,  89 

primitive,  3 

and  Unconscious,  32 
ReUgious  Problem,  i,  146 
Resistance,  180,  198 

Sadism,  iiS 

and  religion,  117 
Salvation,  154 
Sex,  and  adolescent,  209 

and  religion,  30,  80 
Sin,  conviction  of,  12 

blood-guilt,  12 
Spiritism,  129 
Sublimation,   126,  154 
Symbolism,  of  dreams,  66 

of  religion,  226 

Transference,  155,  181,  199 


INDEX 


261 


Unconscious,  and  religion,  32 
and  life,  42,  83,  loi 
and  death,  129 
and  hysteria,  179 
and  occult,  128 


nature  of,  21 
and  spiritism,  132 
Unity,  193 

Waters,  amniotic,  237,  249 


Date  Due 

-  ■<    ?k 

Illv27  38 

.^-V*     '^  -^     '^* 

...». 

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